The Most Perfect Strawberry Shortcake
by thir13enth
Summary: On an epic adventure to find the most perfect strawberry shortcake, Erza runs into friends, sistership, and even love. But mostly she runs into nonsense. Jerza, with a cherry on top.
1. the quest

**Hi friends! Here's to another Jerza! Long form this time. ;)**

 **Inspired by Erza's love for strawberry shortcakes and Jellal, respectively. Lightly AU. Same world, same characters, same relationships, but people will have slightly altered roles and histories. You'll see what I mean when you get there.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

 **the quest**

 _The Fiore Kingdom._

 _A neutral country with a population of 17 million._

 _It is a world of magic. Magic is bought and sold there like anything else and is deeply ingrained in the people's lives. There are even some who make a living using magic._

 _These people are referred to as wizards._

 _These wizards belong to many different guilds and accept jobs brought to them. There are many guilds in this kingdom, and there's a certain wizard guild in a certain town…a guild from which countless legends were once born—_

 _Like Erza Scarlet._

 _Many of us know that Erza is a badass, or at the very least, one of Fairy Tail's strongest members. No matter where you go, the sound of her name rings across the land of Fiore, often accompanied with a gasp of awe and a tribute to her successes. She has fought one thousand demons and one thousand monsters without a single scratch on her stylish armor, without a chip off of any one of her hundreds of blades._

 _She is someone you want on your side. She is someone you want to call your nakama._

 _Erza has achieved many great things, but very few people know that there is indeed one mission that she hasn't completed._

 _And when Erza is not packing her weapons, armor, and mountain of stuff to go to fight off the evils of the world or beating up Natsu and Gray so that they get along, she is on a personal mission, one that even she, the great Erza, has not been able to complete since the day of her birth._

 _And that mission was to find the most perfect strawberry shortcake._

 **we first find Erza here**

The town villagers watched as the scarlet-haired woman slowly chewed the last morsel of the sweet cake, closing her eyes and concentrating on the balance of taste and flavors encapsulated in the little bite. They gasped when she finally swallowed the piece and gently placed the spoon down next to the plate.

She opened her eyes and gave a small smile to everyone that kneeled around her at the low dining table. It was very clear that she was the guest of honor—the owner of the sweet shop had invited her to his private dining area and seated her at the kamiza.

" _Gochisosame deshita_ ," she said, bowing to the owner, who had been standing properly with his hands clasped together on the other side of the room. "Thank you."

The acclaimed Fairy Tail warrioress then slowly stood up from her kneeling position, and all the villagers' eyes followed her ascent, their mouths gaping open at her grace.

She slowly made her way to the exit of the dining room, but before she was completely off the tatami mat, the sweet shop owner called her name.

"Erza- _sama_!" he shouted, and then performed a full-length bow to her. "What did you think of my strawberry shortcake?"

There was a moment of silence before the S-Class Mage turned around, with a brilliant and strong smile across her face. "Hmph," she said, with an approving tone. "Your strawberry shortcake is indeed wonderful."

"Thank you very much for your kind words, Erza- _sama_!" the shop owner cried again, giving her another full-length bow.

"However," she said, "I am still in search for the most perfect strawberry shortcake."

"Of course," the shop owner said. "I understand. Please come again! I will without doubt make your strawberry shortcake with only the finest ingredients under supervision of me and my finest bakers!"

She nodded. "Hmph," she said, with a smile worthy of her nickname Titania. "I will indeed will come again."

As she left the village, a warm gust of wind wrapped around the small town, which immediately celebrated the compliments of the very well-known strawberry shortcake critic. Almost without a delay, a sticker was slapped onto the sweet shop's window—

"Our strawberry shortcake is 'wonderful,' according to Erza! She will come again for another slice!"

 **back in Magnolia**

"You're back," Mirajane simply said, when Erza sat down on the barstool. "How was Chrysanthemum town's strawberry shortcake?"

"Delicious," Erza replied. "I always appreciate a good strawberry shortcake."

Mirajane gently put down the beer glass that she was cleaning, before bending down and producing a magazine from the other side of the bar table. She handed it to Erza, opening to a specific page—a spread that featured the sweet shop that Erza had just come from and a full-length body profile picture of Titania herself.

"Your critique of their shortcake are already all over the news," Mirajane said, with a small laugh. She read off the white bolded title. "Titania declares Chrysanthemum shortcake 'wonderful!'"

"Well it _was_ wonderful," Erza defended.

Mirajane leaned over the table. "But it wasn't _the one_ was it?"

Erza stared her long-time friend straight into the eye. "No," she said, finally.

The eldest Strauss sister folded her arms, giving Erza a petty wry smile. "You're never going to find _the one_ ," she declared, jokingly.

Erza put down her cup of tea. "I will find it," she repeated, containing an angry eyebrow twitch. "I will find _the most perfect strawberry shortcake_. I just need to find the sweet shop that sells it."

Mira sighed and uncrossed her arms. "Erza," she said, softly. "You've been looking for this most perfect strawberry shortcake since before I even met you in Fairy Tail. You've trekked weeklong journeys to try the strawberry shortcake of every new sweet shop that you discover on the map! Remember the old map of Fiore Kingdom that you used to carry around with you all the time?—"

"I _still_ carry it around with me," Erza corrected.

"—Exactly! You must have every square centimeter marked off on that map," the Satan Soul-queen continued. "I don't think you're looking for something that exists! You'd have better luck trying to find a boyfriend. Like who is that boy you used to talk about a lot when you were young? What was his name…? It sounded something like—"

Erza stood up, suddenly, flustered. "D-d-don't compare a strawberry shortcake to a boyfriend!"

The noise in the guild suddenly simmered down, and Erza realized that everyone was suddenly looking at her weirdly because of her outburst. She lowered her voice and sat back down timidly in the bar stool.

Mira gave her a small giggle and leaned over the table again to face Erza. "How about you _make_ the shortcake?"

"Make it?"

The silver-haired beauty queen nodded, with a light twinkle in her eye. "Yes. Find a recipe and make it yourself!"

Erza took Mira's suggestion into consideration, holding her chin in her hand and thinking hard for a long minute. Eventually she stood up from the bar chair—suddenly—and declared, " _Naruhodo._ I will make the _most perfect_ strawberry shortcake and then I will eat the _most perfect_ strawberry shortcake!"

Silence overtook the guild again upon hearing Erza's outburst, but Erza was already on her way to the library to consult the recipe books.

"You can't have your cake and eat it, too, Erza!" someone jokingly yelled at her.

This made Erza freeze and ponder for a moment. But she didn't spend too much time thinking about it.

She never understood the expression anyway.

 **at the library**

"I am making the most perfect strawberry shortcake!" Erza passionately declared to Levy—who didn't know how Erza had arrived to this conclusion.

The blue-haired bookworm tucked away her reading glasses and marked her place in her book with a quick Solid Script: Bookmark spell. "So, you must need a recipe book," Levy concluded.

"That," Erza said, glad that Levy was quick to pick up Erza's intentions, "is _exactly_ what I need."

Levy nodded. "The food-related books are that wing of the library," she said, pointing off to the distance.

The determined warrioress set her sights on the distance that Levy referred to.

"We must not waste any time," Erza said, her strong will leaking out into the air around her. " _Koi_ , Levy! Come here! We must hurry!" The armored-mage broke into a sprint, picking up her small-figured comrade along the way.

"P-p-put me down, Erza!" Levy demanded. "I can get there on my own!"

"Nonsense," Erza said. "This is the least I can do for you since you are helping me on my quest."

A split second later and at Levy's strong request to put her down, the two Fairy Tail mages arrived to the bookshelf that Levy had previously been referring to. Levy took a quick glance at the titles at the shelf—and without a hesitation—she went up on her tiptoes to pick out a book. She enchanted the pages with a quick spell and held her hands over the book, which turned by itself to a page that had "STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE" scrawled across the top.

"There are many version of strawberry shortcake recipes," Levy explained. "But I think this is the most traditional one…I think this might be what you are looking for." She handed the book over to Erza, who quickly skimmed the ingredient list.

"Strawberries, sugar, flour, butter, heavy cream…" the scarlet-haired woman muttered to herself, in deep concentration.

" _Eto_ …" Levy said, with hesitation, not wanting to disturb her very focused _nakama_. "So why are you making a strawberry shortcake, Erza?"

"The _most perfect_ strawberry shortcake," Erza corrected, without even looking up from the page. "…milk, salt, egg, vanilla…"

Levy smiled to herself. She could ask again, but when it came to strawberry shortcake, there was quite literally nothing that could get in Erza's way.

Except of course, _him_.

But Levy knew well enough to not bring _him_ up in a conversation with Erza.

"I will take this with me," Erza declared, closing the book carefully and holding the recipe book against her chest.

Levy knew to trust the book with Erza—the S-Class Mage would never let anything happen to something that would bring her closer to shortcake shortcake. "Okay," Levy agreed.

"First I must find strawberries—but I must have only the finest and sweetest strawberries," Erza told Levy. "Do you know where I might be able to find such strawberries?"

Levy thought for a moment. "I remember reading about Goddess Strawberries. They're located on a single strawberry bush on the highest point of the Lavender Mountain Range—on the southwestern-most tip of Fiore…"

Levy cast some magic, and a book from a nearby shelf landed gently into her hands. She flipped it to an entry page and putting on her reading glasses, reading the text back to Erza.

"Lavender Mountain Range is the passage of mountains that consists of Fiore's highest mountains," Levy read. "The sheer slope and height of the mountains do not allow many things to live comfortably on the mountains—except for evergreen trees. The mountain range is cold and deserted and mostly full of Vulcans. The highest mountain of Lavender Mountain Range is Mt. Jasmine, which is the most reportedly the most dangerous mountain on the planet. At least 100 people have died climbing the mountain, and only 157 have successfully summited it—a ratio of 64 percent—which is the worst ratio known to mankind."

Levy's enthusiasm started to turn to worry as she skimmed ahead of where she read. Unfortunately by now, she couldn't possibly convince Erza that she shouldn't go to Mt. Jasmine just to get Goddess Strawberries. Erza already had her mind set on doing just that—staring death and danger right in the face and grabbing the strawberries at its feet to put on her most perfect strawberry shortcake.

As Levy predicted, Erza's smile didn't falter, despite the text's subtle warnings. "Thank you, Levy. I'll be on my way now." And Erza fixed her sword's halter, resting it comfortably on her hip, ready for the start of a new adventure.

"Stay safe!" Levy reminded, waving the warrioress a goodbye, knowing that Erza often over-achieved.

"Of course," Erza assured. " _Shin pai shi nai de_. I will be fine."

However, as the scarlet-haired warrior trekked this highest and most treacherous mountain range to obtain the most luscious strawberries known to mages and humans alike, she didn't quite expect to run into a certain navy-haired man of her past.

* * *

 **To be honest, I never understand why you 'can't have your cake and eat it too.' Mainly it never made sense to me that one or the other would be bad—and if anything, you should eat the cake anyway since it's going to spoil if you hold onto it any longer…as a native English speaker, I get it what it's supposed to mean, but it still doesn't make sense to me. If anyone cares to explain, feel free.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter! Please review to let me know what you think! Fluffy times coming up!**

 **thir13enth**


	2. the strawberries

**Thank you for the reads, reviews, and follows, everyone! I appreciate the support!**

 **At particular points in the story, I think it makes it extra funny to imagine Erza's Theme epic-ally playing in the background. I'll clue you in on these moments.**

* * *

 **the strawberries**

In traditional Erza style, she ignored all the warning signs leading up the narrow trail to Mt. Jasmine, quickly running right past them at full speed in her cheetah-print Flight Armor.

The mage must have looked quite peculiar to anyone that might have looked (although, undoubtedly, no sane person was up on that mountain range today), since she was quite naked despite ascending into a snowy and wind-chilled mountain.

But Erza knew no cold. She only knew her mission.

She had spent the latter half of the day making her way here all the way from Magnolia, and the sun was going to set soon. Therefore she needed to get the Goddess Strawberries as quickly as possible, and she could waste no time reading signs that warned her of any danger—because she was going to run into the danger anyway.

"I will obtain the Goddess Strawberries by the end of today!" she declared before she left the guild. She, of course, got a ton of support and hand waves from her guild members, but no one could really top Erza's enthusiasm for this personal mission of hers.

Erza was completely prepared—her magic at its highest levels yet (mostly due to her gungho attitude about desserts), she had a freshly weaved basket tucked in her arm (only the best quality baskets for the most delicate and luscious strawberries), and tucked underneath her right breast plate was the sacred book that described how to make her most perfect strawberry shortcake.

There was nothing that would get in her way today.

Except perhaps the fact that this bush of Goddess Strawberries that Levy had talked about earlier was nowhere to be found.

Erza had checked virtually every single bush on the peak of Mt. Jasmine, making sure not to fall off the crumbling rocks between the slippery and icy parts of the mountain or hurt herself on the irregular, jaggedly branched evergreen trees scattered throughout the area. Not a single bush that she had overturned had the even the slightest bit of fruit on them. Unfortunately, most of the bushes seemed quite dead.

However, Titania was not known to give up at the first sight of defeat.

In fact, she didn't even recognize this as a loss.

Despite the fact that her legs were starting to develop goosebumps in the cold air after standing still for a while on chilly mountain, she was still pumped up as ever and just as motivated as when she started her whole adventure.

 **(Here's a good moment to start playing Erza's Theme in your head, if you wish. Or have it playing on your computer in the background while you read this.)**

There was clearly a reason why the strawberries were not showing themselves, she thought to herself.

Then a realization came upon her, and reinvigorated, Erza prepared herself for another requip.

" _Kansou_! Requip!" she announced, raising her arms and letting the warmth of her magic spread through her body.

"Strawberry Armor!" She closed her eyes, thought of the armor that she desired, and then waited as the quick flash of magic quickly undressed and redressed her into her new armor.

As one might expect, Strawberry Armor was an armor that Erza had specifically designed for collecting strawberries. Her Strawberry Armor consisted of a completely black leotard with thin black gardening gloves, perfect for picking through bushy leaves for fruity bits. Over her black leotard, she wore a huge strawberry costume, soft and fluffy. Her head stuck out of the top of the strawberry, and on top of her head, a cap with the strawberry leaves. The suit came with a matching pair of black mountain boots and a built-in pouch in the front of the costume.

Perfect for strawberry picking. She predicted her Strawberry Armor increased her strawberry picking levels by at least four times. By dressing up like a strawberry, other strawberries in the area would be less intimidated and be more inclined to show themselves.

Now then, it was time to search for strawberries once more!

"Come, my fellow strawberries!" she called. "I must include you in the most perfect strawberry shortcake!"

After putting on the armor and calling on the other strawberries, Erza could swear that she could hear the sugar-coated voices of the other strawberries on the mountain.

She quickly followed her strawberry senses, running up the steep incline of the mountain without a lost step. She wasted no energy in her movements, sprinting forward with all the energy that she had. She could hear the strawberry voices—smell their strawberry scent—feel the enveloping strawberry atmosphere that was growing near.

Erza made a sharp left and then ran a few hundred more meters before stopping immediately at a bumpy patch of snow that she—indeed—had missed earlier.

The strawberry-armor-donning warrior got down onto all fours and quickly brushed the icy crystals away from the bush to check if this bush was indeed the source of all good strawberry-ness, the mother-bush of the Goddess Strawberries, the queen of all sweet fruits.

And indeed, there, glistening against the snow were the Goddess Strawberries.

She took a moment to admire the gigantic strawberries, swollen to the very brim with sugary goodness and ripened to the most juicy red color.

Erza then carefully took one strawberry—the one closest to her at the time—in her hand and plucked it from the bush. The fruit of labor—practically half the size of her face—was in her right hand. She closed her eyes and brought the berry to her nose, taking in its sweet perfume.

 _Indeed_ , she thought and a smile crept across her lips, a light blush appeared over her cheeks. These were the most perfect strawberries that could only go on her most perfect strawberry shortcake. She didn't even need to know how many strawberries she needed, she just knew that she must use _these_ strawberries.

Erza got right to work, tucking the firstly picked strawberry into the basket she bought specifically for the Goddess Strawberry collecting. But she needed to remove these strawberries from the bush, and she had do this gently and carefully so as not to mess the purity of the fruit.

She had just the solution.

"Requip!" she said, stretching out her hands again. "Heaven's Wheel Armor!"

As the white titanium plates of armor fit themselves snugly around her torso, knife blades assembled into wings reminiscent of her guild attached to the backs of her shoulders. Metal clicked on metal and sharp edge swiped against sharp edge, and by the time she opened her hazelnut eyes to face the strawberry bush, she had become the magnificent sworded fairy that the kingdom of Fiore imagined when they heard her name.

"Dance, my blades!" she called – and a circle of thin swords swirled around behind her. She pointed to the bush with her right sword, threatening the strawberry bush with the sharp tip, and all the swords behind her suddenly pointed in the exact same direction.

A brief pause, and then upon her command, all of her requipped swords hurled themselves toward the bush.

After two seconds, there was an entire circle of destruction in front of her, all the trees around the strawberry bush felled and the snow in the area blown away by the sheer wind slicing power of her mass sword attack. Surprisingly, the strawberry bush was near intact—snow and drops of icicles still hanging precariously off some of the evergreen leaves—save the twenty or something strawberries that were cut from it.

Titania's eyes turned bright—like Happy's eyes when he saw fish just within his reach—when she mentally counted the amount of strawberries that were now for her taking. She requipped into her strawberry armor once again and then got onto all fours to scoop up every single strawberry that she had released from the bush, sighing and admiring each strawberry that she picked up.

Her job was done. She looked up at the sky to check the sky and was relieved to see that the sun had barely moved since the last time she had checked it. She draped her basket, full of Goddess Strawberries, on her left arm and then started heading back down the treacherous Mt. Jasmine to make her way down and out of the Lavender Mountain Range. She happily began humming, enthusiastic about the comforting weight of the strawberries bouncing in her basket.

She was one step closer to her most perfect strawberry shortcake.

Erza was halfway down the mountain when she heard something suspicious coming at her from behind her.

Her ears twitched to get a better sense of the odd sound behind her but prepared to equip the strawberry katana that was tucked into her Strawberry Armor. Judging by the heavy tremors that she felt at her feet, whatever was coming at her from behind was a large creature.

No worries, though—whatever it was would not be able to defeat an Erza with a purpose.

"Oh ho ho ho! A strawberry woman!" a deep, low ape-like voice cheered.

 _A Vulcan_? Erza thought, and then she smiled, remembering that Levy had told her about the friendly neighborhood Vulcans that were lived in the Lavender Mountain Range.

The scarlet-haired mage turned sharply, heeling the slippery snow-covered ground with great agility and stabbed forward with hilt of the strawberry katana, poking right between the eyes and knocking out the Vulcan that was coming at her. The Vulcan dropped down to the ground, but Erza quickly realized that this was not the only Vulcan that was surrounding her.

She also quickly realized that she quite an attraction for the Vulcans—which were notoriously known for their perverted love for women and for strawberries. As a woman dressed up in a strawberry costume that was carrying a basket of Goddess Strawberries, she was wearing red target for the creatures.

Well, there was only one way to take care of a situation like this.

"Requip!" she yelled. "Black Wing Armor!"

And before any more Vulcans took another step, she swiftly took down each and every single one of them, leaving a hard bump on each of their foreheads to knock them out for much longer than she needed to get down the mountain, barely disturbing even one of the strawberries tucked in her basket.

She rested for a quick moment, breathing in and out calmly before requipping into her Flight Armor for agility and speed. She turned around to finish her route down the mountain.

But she bumped into something else.

She gasped and whipped out a sword, backing up from the surprise offender.

"Uh-uh-uh sorry!" the surprise offender yelled, falling backwards onto the snow at her sudden and violent reaction.

And then it was her time to be surprised.

"Je-Jellal!" she exclaimed.

His eyes widened at her confirmation that she indeed knew who he was. "Er-Erza?" he stuttered, in the same manner like she did.

Erza tried to calm herself down mentally.

She hadn't seen that blue-haired man since she was a child!

Why…was he making her heart beat so quickly? Why was the sight of his familiar chocolate brown eyes making her freeze when the cold snow of Mt. Jasmine done nothing to her? Why was she feeling a mixed burst of emotions—excitement, nervousness, happiness—all tucked into a wrapper of warmth? Why did she feel a growing heat rise from her throat right up to her cheeks?

" _Hisashiburi da na._ It's been a long time, huh?" he said, a wide smile stretching over his mouth. He picked himself up and approached her.

She watched as he gallantly made his way over to her, recognizing his confident and strong gait. He wore mostly dark clothing, a black bodysuit with a plate of armor over his torso and a dark navy cloak over his shoulders. His hair had not changed at all—messy as ever—but now a bit longer and a bit more shaggy. His face had matured and a firm jawline had settled over his countenance. He was no longer the scrawny kid from her memories—he had grown into a tall and slim body, with broad shoulders, toned arms, sturdy legs, and a charming smile, a half-smile that carried more modesty than smirk.

Erza heard her heart grow louder in her ears as he slowed to a stop in front of her, towering over her almost a full head. She saw his eyes looking straight at her, and after a long second of staring back into his eyes, she almost fainted at his intense gaze.

"Yeah…" she said, forcing herself to not be shy and looking back up at him.

The woman that had just brought down an army of Vulcans in one fell swoop a second ago was now melting like butter in front of a man that she hadn't seen for the latter half of her life.

"So…" he said, in a dark chocolate and velvet voice that tickled her ears. "What brings you to this part of the world?"

 _This is something that I should be asking him too!,_ she thought to herself, but she found that her usual snappiness was somehow very simmered in face of him.

Her world began crumbling—no pun intended—in front of her. There was no way that she could say that she was collecting strawberries to make the most perfect strawberry shortcake—no way that she could admit that to _him_! But then what would she say that she was here for? What would sound like she was a normal, sane woman and not one hyper-obsessed with finding the most perfect strawberry shortcake?

"I-I-I…" she stuttered. What the hell was wrong with her voice?

Without a word, he reached forward to run a strand of her hair through his hand, gathering a few strands at his fingertips delicately. "Your hair is still as beautiful as I last remembered it," he said. "Scarlet."

At this point, Erza's face must have been as red and as hot as Natsu's flames, or at least so she thought. "Uh-uh-oh thank you!" she still stuttered.

 _Come on, Erza. You can take down an army of strawberry-stealing Vulcans—you can at least talk to the guy without messing up your words!,_ she thought to herself.

"I've missed you, Erza," he continued, a soft smile on his face. "I'm really happy to have run into you."

"I'm…I'm happy too," she said, finally getting a sentence out.

His smile grew by a millimeter, but then his expression shifted when his eyes caught something behind her.

Before she could really understand what had just happened, he suddenly glowed a bright yellow aura and dashed behind her at a speed she couldn't even measure, her hair whipping back with the wind he left behind in his steps.

"Meteor!" he said.

Erza heard the loud groan of an unconscious Vulcan from behind her, and when she turned around, she realized that Jellal had finished off a Vulcan that had she had missed earlier. Jellal strode towards her and then caught up with her, placing his right arm around her shoulders and walking them forward.

Her body stuttered, tripping a bit when trying to stay in step with him. She was very flustered, unclear about why Jellal was being very touchy with her. Hadn't they gotten off on weird terms?

Actually now that she thought about it for a moment, she realized that she didn't really remember how they had dropped off and lost all contact with each other.

Before moving to Fairy Tail, Erza grew up in the foster home for as long as she could remember. While she was there, Jellal had been one of her closest friends, the blue-haired boy that once was brave enough to demand their foster home allow the foster kids more time to read and be in the library instead of doing chores. Jellal and Erza had spent many hours together, whether they were on their own made-up adventures exploring the dark crevices of the foster home or whether they were doing the most boring of all chores.

Then the night before she left the foster home, their relationship completely broke in half.

Erza had decided to join a guild—Fairy Tail—and leave the foster home, so the night before she officially left, she decided to announce it to the rest of the foster kids. After she told everyone future plans, Jellal—who had been very popular at the time—made a loud comment that made the rest of the kids laugh at her.

To this day, she couldn't remember the boy had said but she knew that whatever he did say had been very mean and hurt her a lot. She recalled being extremely angry with him and storming away from the common area, shouting that Jellal was no longer her friend anymore. She left the foster home the next day, saying goodbye and hugging everyone before she went, but purposefully ignoring Jellal.

Despite this history, when he saw her, after not seeing him for over 10 years, Jellal didn't seem to carry any of those lingering emotions with him. In fact, it seemed like he had just forgotten everything that had happened between the two of them. Did he truly forget? Or was he assuming that they were starting on a new foot? Or maybe the only reason why she remembered was because _she_ was the one that kept the grudge?

"Where are we going?" she asked him, bringing herself back to the present.

He looked down at her. "Well, I thought it would be first good to get you out of this Vulcan area," he said, glancing at the fruit in her basket. "The strawberries are very attractive to Vulcans."

She nodded.

"Were you planning on going back home?" he asked her.

"Yes," she replied. "I'm going back to Magnolia."

"That's where your guild is, right? Fairy Tail."

And that's when Erza realized that he might have not forgotten about what had happened her last night at the foster home at all. How else would he have remembered that she was in Fairy Tail?

"Yeah," she affirmed, quickly.

"I'll take you down to the nearest train station then."

Then he lifted his arm from around her shoulders and before the heat from his arm disappeared, suddenly, a heavy warmth draped over her shoulders. When she looked to see what had fallen over her, she realized that Jellal had taken off his cloak and given it to her.

"You must be cold," he simply explained.

She suddenly remembered that she had been in her Flight Armor this entire time—the very revealing and non-modest Flight Armor. Normally she didn't care for these sort of social conventions but at that moment, a deep blush crept over her face, and she kept her face down, cooling herself down with deep exhales to rid herself of the blush as fast as possible. Else, she hoped that it just looked like her face had turned red from the cold.

Erza grasped her basket of strawberries more tightly to her, wrapping his cloak closer to her and gratefully accepting the extra layer. Now that she was not in her making-the-most-perfect-strawberry-shortcake mode, her immunity to cold, tiredness, hunger and thirst had disappeared, and she indeed appreciate the residual warmth from his cloak.

 _He smells good_ , she realized also, when a whiff of his scent touched her nose. He smelled the same, an earthy and slightly sweet aroma that she remembered from her youth—and one that she was sure Ichiya would consider a beautiful "parfum." (Meeeen.)

Erza looked over at her childhood friend, who had indeed grown into a handsome man. Now that he had removed his cloak and placed it on her, she could very much more easily see how he had developed after all the time they had spent apart.

Even through his black clothing and the form-fitting chest plate armor covered the majority of his figure, she could tell he possessed the strong arms to carry a person in need, a broad back to shoulder the weights of the world, the hardened legs to carry him forward when everyone around him gave up, and a tender heart that could understand anyone's hardships.

She watched a cloud of heat escape from between his lips when he exhaled, wafting into the crisp mountain air, before forcing her eyes back down.

How old was she now? 26?

It had been _that_ long and he still remembered who she was.

She could live with that, she determined and smiled to herself, clutching his cloak more tightly.

After a while, once they had gotten to the base of Mt. Jasmine, Erza decided to ask her question.

"What were you doing here anyway?"

Jellal smiled, looking down at the ground. "I don't know," he admitted. "I just had the feeling that I should be at the top of a mountain today and decided to climb up this one." He paused before adding, "It's the highest one in all of Fiore, you know?"

"Mhm," she agreed, remembering what Levy had read to her the day before.

"Did you get to see the view when you got to the top?"

She couldn't admit to him that she had not seen the view—because she had been so focused on finding the Goddess Strawberries. So she lied to him instead.

"Yeah," she said. "It was beautiful."

"Yes," he agreed. "You could see how truly big the world is. Sometimes our lives make up our entire world, but on the top of a mountain, when you look down on it, our lives are so small." He looked at her. "But maybe I was called to the mountain for another reason, huh?"

She found herself caught in his eyes for a bit longer than she would have liked to admit. She quickly snapped out of it. "I didn't need your help with the Vulcans," she stated, regaining herself.

"I know," Jellal replied. "But I got to see you."

She didn't prepare a proper response to that, so she didn't say a word, turning away and not letting him see the smile that lifted on her lips.

He was still the same Jellal after all, huh?

 **later**

Even long after he had dropped her off at the train station, Erza still felt his warm cloak over her shoulders.

 _I saw Jellal today_ , she reminded herself.

She hadn't seen anyone from her foster home since the day that she had left to go to join Fairy Tail…

She wondered how much her friends might have changed since then, and she wondered if she was ever going to have the chance to see the other foster home friends that she had left behind. She had almost completely forgotten that she had a past before Fairy Tail, and deep down, she was glad that Jellal had reminded her that as much as she shunned her dark and lonely youth moving from foster home to foster home, she did still have something good to look back upon.

Erza gathered herself up before she kicked open the doors of Fairy Tail.

"I have acquired the Goddess Strawberries!" she announced loudly, championing her basket of Goddess Strawberries to the high ceiling of the guild.

And the sun had only just set.

"Oy, Erza!" Gray said, "I heard you went to Mt. Jasmine!"

"Gray!" she greeted him back, sitting down at one of the tables across from the half-naked mage.

Natsu and Lucy joined the chattering duo. "Erza!" they called, with Happy flying in behind Natsu.

"Natsu! Lucy! Happy!" she greeted. She showed them her basket of strawberries, posing with the sweet fruits. "I have my Goddess Strawberries for my most perfect strawberry shortcake."

"Erza, you're really going for this, aren't you?" Lucy said, in awe of Erza's determination and steadfastness for her strawberry shortcake mission.

" _Mochiron_! Of course!" Erza replied. "I could only let the most perfect things go into my most perfect strawberry shortcake."

"Levy told us that you were going to a dangerous mountain with lots of monsters," Natsu said, punching his hand with his other fist. "Did you run into any?"

"I did," Erza admitted. "And I defeated every single one of them. I would not let them get my strawberries…" And she paused for a long moment, watching the four of her nakama waiting for the rest of her story. "…and I ran into an old friend," she finished quickly.

"An old friend?"Natsu asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," she replied, as a matter-of-fact. "We had a good conversation."

"Hmmm?" Mirajane's voice joined the five of them. She seemed to have floated into the conversation after overhearing Erza's story. Mirajane acted innocently, perching her head on both of her hands, elbows on the table and tilting her head to the side. "Who was this _friend_?"

"He was an old friend from before Fairy Tail," Erza replied, not letting Mira's prying try to stir her.

"Was this person…named _Jellal_?" Mirajane asked, with a smirk.

Oh, Mira had dared to do the name drop.

And just his name flustered the Queen of the Fairies. "N-n-no!" Erza stuttered.

"Oh ho ho ho, Erza!" Gray exclaimed, liking where the conversation was going.

" _Dekiteirrrrrrru_! She likesssss him!" Happy pffted, barely able to contain his laughter behind his feline paws.

"Happy!" Lucy warned, but Erza was already starting to quietly fume.

"What did you two talk about?" Mirajane pushed.

"Nothing," Erza replied, curtly. "We just talked. He walked me to the train station."

"A date?!" Natsu blurted.

Even Lucy couldn't help but fall into the nonsense of the other four that were pestering Erza about her _friend_.

"Hehh?! Erza?!" Lucy exclaimed. "You went on a date?"

"" _Dekiteirrrrrr—_ aaaaaahhhhh!"

Then Happy went flying through the window, having been punched out by a furious Erza.

* * *

 **So I've introduced some of the slightly AU elements. Basically instead of the Tower of Heaven, Erza and Jellal had grown up in a foster home and have past tensions for different reasons other than Jellal being possessed by Zeref. Hopefully that was clear enough!**

 **And I know what you're thinking about the Goddess Strawberries. How the hell do strawberries grow on a really icy and snowy mountain? I don't know—but it felt right to put them in the most ridiculous place and season for this story.** **Hopefully Erza didn't seem too OOC either! (Though I think when around Jellal or provoked about Jellal, she does get quite flustered. :3)**

 **But that said, I hope you enjoyed this installment! Let me know what you think!**

 **thir13enth**

** **In other notes, I've recently started watching Kill la Kill (which I know, I probably should have already watched years ago, but...I just didn't have the time) and currently totally in love with Harime Nui's theme. Totally reminds me of Puella Magi Madoka Magica's soundtrack, which I pretty much absolutely loved. Almost done with the series, so if there's any total mindfucks, please spare me the spoilers!**


	3. the sugar

**Hey friends! Thanks again for all the support! I super appreciate it and it keeps me writing/putting out new chapters! :)**

 **And here comes the next part of this story:**

* * *

 **the sugar**

Erza woke up the next morning, clear-headed and ready to collect the next most perfect ingredient for her most perfect strawberry shortcake. She stretched up from bed, wriggling into the new day and did a casual requip for the morning to get herself dressed.

Having already done the research for where to find the best sugar, Erza had decided to go southeast to the tropical part of the kingdom of Fiore. She was going to collect her own sugarcane and process her own sugar from the plants—clearly the most perfect sugar for her most perfect strawberry shortcake.

She added the finishing touch to her outfit, a large sunhat that she would use when she was out in the sugarcane field. She secured her pack onto her back and strolled out of the guild at the stroke of dawn that morning, ready to conquer the day.

She hummed to herself. Yes, she was going to have the sugar that she needed by the end of the day. She thought of the Goddess Strawberries that she had secured in her fridge, thinking of how much closer she was to the dessert of her dreams, and her heart sang with joy.

The Queen of Fairies kicked open the door to the outside and drank in the sunshine, determined and heading straight for the train station.

"Hey," she heard a familiar male voice say.

"Je-Jellal!" she exclaimed, when she realized that he had been sitting just outside of the guild.

It was a bad sign for her to start the day with a stutter, she thought to herself.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him, stepping backwards a small step as he approached her.

"I thought I'd see you again," he simply explained, with a bit of a sheepish smile. "I'm sorry if I surprised you." He observed her outfit for a second. "Where are you going today?"

Erza decided that she couldn't help the fact that Jellal was going to tag along with her today—nor did she particularly mind—and continued on her way to the train station. "I'm going to make some sugar today," she said. "I'm going to cut down some sugarcane and make sugar."

"So strawberries yesterday…and sugar today, huh?" Jellal remarked.

"Yes," Erza said, trying not to make serious of the situation. Surely he wouldn't catch onto her true intentions…

"Do you mind if I come along?" he asked.

The redhead hesitated, not wanting to answer immediately so it sounded like she _wanted_ him to come along. She mentally ran through a number of different ways to say 'sure' without sounding too eager. She wanted to make it sound like she was begrudgingly letting him come along, but she didn't want to make it seem like she hated him or disliked him in anyway or communicate that he was troublesome. She wanted to make it somewhat friendly too, but not to the point where she sounded like she really wanted his company…

"Nope," she finally said, after what felt to her like a long stretch of time. She wasn't sure if that was the tone that she had been going for, but it didn't feel wrong either.

Erza quickly reminded herself that she was thinking too hard about this. What about him made her so self-conscious all of a sudden?

She saw him smile from the corner of her eye.

What was he so happy about? Why did he come all the way to Fairy Tail to come see her? If he knew that she was in Fairy Tail this entire time, why hadn't he come to the guild earlier? Why did he want to be friends with her and hang out with her more now as opposed to three or four years ago?

Erza realized that she still didn't know a thing about Jellal; she had no idea what had become of him or where he was living or even what he did on a day-to-day basis. Despite this uncomfortable feeling that she still didn't know anything about her mysterious childhood friend, her body walked with ease alongside him and she didn't feel any extra tension in her mind.

The entire way to the train station, she thought about this silently, and still wasn't able to come to a conclusion about what this all meant before one of the rail workers greeted her loudly.

"Erza- _san_!" he called. "Where are you going today?"

She brightened upon seeing the familiar face. "I'm going just beyond Lamia Scale—to the sugarcane forest!"

"On another mission?"

" _Hai_!" she replied, and she was lead onto the corresponding train on the platform.

Erza made herself comfortable in one of the train's seat compartments, putting down her backpack and settling down, kicking her legs onto the seats across from her.

But then she remembered that she had a travel companion.

"Oh," she said, in replacement of an apology and took down her feet, putting them back onto the ground.

"It's okay," he said, sitting down in the seat facing her. "I know you're used to traveling alone."

What was _that_ supposed to mean? She thought briefly on the subject, but let the ruminations go when the train conductor popped his head into the compartment.

"Erza!" the train conductor explained. "Off again today, huh?"

She nodded, and then reached into her pack to find the money to pay for her ticket. But the blue-haired man in front of her was quicker and swiftly gave the conductor a gold coin himself.

"This is for the two of us," he said. "You can keep the change for yourself."

The conductor looked at the large denomination of the coin, not even able to quickly mentally calculate how much extra Jellal had provided him for their two tickets, and then gave him a short bow before giving him a verbal thank you and going on his way to the next seat compartment.

Erza froze, her hand still reaching into her coin purse. "You didn't have to pay for me," she said, simply.

Jellal shrugged. "I'm paying for your troubles taking me with you," he explained.

She decided not to question his actions, putting away her own purse and looking at the window. However, she couldn't help but think about the fact that Jellal had given the train conductor an entire gold coin—which was enough to pay for at least 10 individual rides—and told him to just keep the excess money.

What, was Jellal suddenly rich or something? In the time that they had spent apart, had he become wealthy and powerful?

 _Or maybe,_ she mused. Perhaps he was just trying to show off?

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in and out, not letting the questions that were building up in her head get in the way of her focus on getting her sugar for her most perfect strawberry shortcake.

"You're well-known, Erza," Jellal suddenly said, interrupting her thoughts.

She stared directly into his eyes for a moment, before asking, "Did you hear of me before today?"

Jellal gave her a soft smile, one that threatened to make her blush. "Yes," he admitted, after a while, as if he didn't want her to know that he had.

"You knew I was in Fairy Tail," she said. "Why didn't you come to visit me?"

His eyes lost a bit of their shine. He kept his eyes focused on her, but she could tell that he was having a little bit of trouble getting out the words—the first time she had ever seen him slightly unconfident since yesterday.

"I thought you might have not wanted to see me," he answered, finally.

She blinked for a moment, thinking briefly of the few times when she had been younger and thought of him and the rest of her foster home friends. The first few months away from her foster home friends and in Fairy Tail, she had thought about him and the rest of her friends a lot—hoping that they hadn't forgotten about her and had been planning to visit her soon.

It had been her wish to the stars every night. _I hope my friends come to see me tomorrow!_

A few years passed, and she had heard no word from Jellal or any of her childhood friends, so she had stopped thinking about them as frequently. She eventually had determined that maybe the reason why they—Jellal—hadn't come to visit her was because they thought that she had betrayed them by going off to join a guild rather than staying in the foster home with them. She had told herself that maybe _that_ was the reason why Jellal had said that mean comment to her—because he had been mad that she was leaving all of them behind to go make new friends and find a new home without them.

It was then that she stopped hoping that her foster home friends would come to see her, but she couldn't help thinking about them—about _Jellal_ —every now and then, which eventually was how the rest of the guild—especially Mirajane—caught on and started teasing her about Jellal-this or Jellal-that.

But now that Jellal had admitted that he thought she had been the one that was upset with him…That made her realize that maybe the reason why he hadn't come to see her in the first place was because he thought that she was still mad at him for being mean to her that night before she left.

She realized that this was what she had always wanted to get off her chest. The fact that she hadn't said a proper goodbye to Jellal had been bothering her since day one of coming to Fairy Tail.

This was her time to set things straight.

"No," she corrected him. "Not at all. I really missed you…everyone. You should have come visit me." Then after a moment, she added, "I'm not mad at you."

His dark brown eyes flickered. "You're not mad at me?" he asked.

"No," she affirmed, shaking her head. She paused for a bit. "I'm sorry about not saying goodbye to you," she apologized. "I _had_ been mad because you made fun of me for leaving to go to a guild the night before, but that was when we were just kids—I'm not mad at you anymore."

He looked at her a long time, and she was surprised that she was able to hold his gaze.

"Oh," he said, after some silence. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay!" she nervously said, suddenly very uncomfortable with how deep the conversation was going. She swatted her hand back and forth and laughed shakily. "W-we were just kids, after all!"

"Yeah," he softly agreed, giving her a small smile.

"Ah hahaha…" She continued fake laughing, trying to brush off the entire subject.

"I'm really glad that I ran into you, Erza," he said, after a beat.

She could only manage a nervous smile, hoping that he wasn't expecting a response from her, because she was only going to be able to do that awkwardly. Their conversation had already been embarrassing and a bit too emotionally revealing for her, and it had only grown worse from there.

After a long time staring out the window to fight off the awkward moment and resisting the urge to sneak a look at him to see what he was looking at, she determined that he probably hadn't been expecting a response from her. She relaxed a bit, realizing that her muscles had been tense the entire conversation, and repositioned herself before looking back at him.

He was sleeping, she realized, seeing his closed eyes. His body had leaned over to rest his head and shoulder against the wall, his blue hair messily falling over his face. He looked peaceful…and she couldn't help but think, adorable.

It was as if under the mature and grown body, he was still the young, adventurous boy that she had once grown so close to.

And despite the many questions that still marinated in her mind about what had become of the time that separated the two of them, and despite the uncomfortable tension that she felt between them, she smiled to herself and allowed herself to watch him sleep for a bit longer.

 **at the sugarcane forest**

"You came completely prepared," he remarked, when she produced a machete from the air after a subtle requip spell and put on her sunhat.

"Of course," she replied and started looking for the best sugarcane in the area—keeping on the lookout for only the tallest sugarcane with the deepest royal purple stems and richest green leaves. Those sugarcane would the most perfect sugarcane and they would make the most perfect sugar.

And that, along with her most perfect strawberries, would bake into her most perfect strawberry shortcake.

She found a sugarcane cluster that met her most perfect requirements and then quickly hacked it down, giving Jellal—who insisted that he help—the stalks that she had cut down. He lay the long stalks across his arms and followed her as she ventured further into the sugarcane row for another chop.

"You're picking out the best sugarcane?" he asked, and when she didn't reply, he knew that this was a 'yes.'

"Why?" he then asked.

She paused, hesitating for a moment. "I'm gathering only the best sugarcane to make the best sugar," she said, as concisely and as vaguely as possible.

He seemed to understand that she wasn't going to answer his questions with any more detail than that and left her alone after that.

She continued to hack at the most perfect sugarcane, electing to do this with a machete rather than requipping her swords to do the work for her. For some reason, she didn't want to use her magic in front of him—for some reason she felt it embarrassing to do so.

A very focused Erza kept throwing the sugarcane stalks back behind her at Jellal, who continued to follow her into the sugarcane forest and carry the sugarcane that she chopped up.

" _Ano_ … Erza?" he asked.

She pretended that she didn't hear him, hacking away even harder at the sugarcane stalks. _Focus, Erza_ , she told herself. She worried that they would get into another deep conversation that she wasn't ready for.

He called her name again, and in response, she threw back another round of sugarcane stalks.

She walked way ahead of him, moving onto the next row of sugarcane. Concentrating on only the task at hand, she chopped at this bundle of sugarcane and turned around, waiting for Jellal to pick up the stalks.

Then she realized that he was lagging behind he was carrying _too much_ sugarcane!

"Ah!" she yelped, running back toward him. She had been so busy focusing on not being distracted that she completely forgot that there was a limit to how much sugarcane he could carry!

The stack of sugarcane he carried was precariously balanced into a pyramid above his arms. The sugarcane went well above his head, and she was certain that he was straining his back quite a bit carrying the stalks.

"E-E-Erza," he said, breathing heavily under the weight of the crop. "I think you have enough."

"I'm sorry!" she apologized and then reached over to try to split the load.

However, that was the last sugarcane that broke the man's back, and the entire stack of sugarcane came tumbling down. Jellal fell with it, and Erza was caught up in the whole catastrophe—before they knew it, Jellal had landed on top of her—and his hands were in a not-so-innocent place…right on top of her boobs.

"Ah! _Suma!_ I'm sorry!" he jumped off of her and tucked his hands away. He blushed furiously and watched her with wide eyes.

It took her a moment to realize that she had just been groped. "U-Uh…I-It's okay!" she said, getting up.

"I-I'll pick up the sugarcane," he declared and then turned around to get to doing so.

"M-me too!" she said, her face turning a bright red as well.

 **later**

After the whole falling-over-each-other incident, they didn't speak until Erza told Jellal that they now had to press out all the juice from the sugarcane and boil off the water to collect the sugar.

Without another word, they pressed all the moisture out of the stalks, cranking the sugarcane through the wooden machine. They collected all of the sugarcane juice into a large pot, and after Jellal carried it over to a small pit where they could lit a fire, Erza reached over to start a fire with a set of matches.

"Here, I got this," he said, stopping her from the matches, and then snapped his fingers quickly to conjure a flame.

His fire was a honey golden flame, and it burned warmly and sweetly. The sugarcane juice in the pot started bubbling and boiling soon after, and before the sun set, they ended up with a thick layer of large diamond-like sugar crystals all along the pot's edge.

Erza chipped some of the sugar off and tasted it, immediately discovering that this was indeed the most perfect sugar. She was satisfied.

"Good?" he asked her, and she nodded, beckoning him to try some as well. Jellal did the same as her, breaking off a piece of sugar and then lifting it to his tongue. He agreed after trying it. And then a second after, a large, almost comedic smile stretched over his face.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"Sugar and strawberries," he simply said. "You're baking a strawberry shortcake, huh?"

Her shocked face told him the answer.

"You haven't changed at all," Jellal laughed. "You still really love strawberry shortcake, huh?"

She was embarrassed that he had actually caught onto her true intentions and nodded like a child who had been caught stealing from the cookie jar. Jellal's discerning eyes met her sheepish and slightly ashamed eyes and he let out a small low chuckle, knowing that he had been right all along.

Erza turned around to hide a small smile, but as she did that, she didn't notice his eyes turned sad.

 **back on the train**

The sun had set by the time they got to the train, and they ended up taking a late evening train back to Magnolia—a ride that Jellal insisted he pay for again, despite Erza's resistance. The two of them had lay the many jars of sugar they had collected from today's harvest on the seat facing them, opting for the two of them to share the same seat on the other side.

Indeed, as usual, Erza had gone overboard, above and beyond the amount of the sugar that she needed in her recipe, and even Erza was aware of this when she opened the sacred recipe book to the strawberry shortcake page.

 _I really only needed a little more than a cup of sugar, huh,_ she realized, adding up the measurements for sugar.

She realized that Jellal was not-so-discretely looking over her shoulder at the recipe book as well.

"This is the recipe?" he asked her.

She moved the book to her right, so that the two of them could share a better view of the text.

"I need to get the dairy ingredients next—the heavy cream, butter, and milk," she said.

He gave her a simple nod, and she tucked the recipe book back under her armor plate.

Jellal looked at the numerous jars of sugar that they had piled on the seat in front of them. "We got too much sugar," he observed.

"Yeah…" she said, embarrassed again.

He looked at her. "But we had fun, right?"

This time, she looked back up at him, but found she couldn't keep eye contact with him without blushing. "I guess," she admitted, and then looked out the window, watching dark shadowy figures of things pass by them.

After a while, Erza felt a heavy weight on her right shoulder. When she looked to that side, she saw a mess of blue hair and realized that Jellal had actually fallen asleep on her!

Her eyes widened and an imminent blush threatened to cover her face. What was she to do? Shrug his head off of her shoulder?

Erza snuck a look again at his calm, resting face and couldn't help a smile form on her lips.

Maybe she would just let him sleep.

* * *

 **Oh god, this story is so fluffy…(except for that one "eyes suddenly turned sad" part, muahaha, more on that later) but still I can't even…I don't usually write fluffy stories. I usually angst or action my way through things.**

 **But hopefully y'all enjoyed! Drop me a comment and I'll see you next time!**

 **thir13enth**


	4. the dairy

**Hey friends! Thanks for the reviews, favorites, and follows! 3 You are making my days every time I see an email from Fanfiction come up in my inbox. :D**

 **But onwards to more Jerza fluff! And a surprise guest!**

* * *

 **the dairy**

When Erza set out of the guild the next day, she stopped to look around, expecting a familiar face and dark blue hair to come up around the corner.

Except that he wasn't there, as he had been the day before, sitting outside and waiting for her.

In the case that he was late—or maybe, was on his way—she even waited for a full two minutes, before she started questioning why she was waiting on him in the first place. The scarlet-haired girl shook herself out of the mood and headed over to the train station herself.

She had to obtain the most perfect strawberry shortcake after all. There wasn't any other objective in life.

However, the S-Class Mage found herself giving her rediscovered friend another chance, and after she got to the train station and seated herself onto the train, the first thing she asked the conductor was if he had come across anyone that seemed remotely like Jellal.

"Oh, your boyfriend, you mean? No, I haven't seen him, Erza- _san_."

"He's not my boyfriend," she corrected quickly, with a light flush, and she pulled out her wallet to pay for her ticket.

"That won't be necessary," the conductor told her. "Your boyfriend paid quite a bit last time—the least I can do is pass you a free ride, right?"

Erza didn't argue this time, sighing, and putting away the coins back into her purse.

Boyfriend, huh? Even if the two of them had been friends up until now, she wouldn't be so sure that _that_ kind of a relationship would have started between the two of them. Sure, he had been very nice and helpful to her since they had last met, and sure, he had been relatively touchy with her from the start…

She thought about the word for a moment, but when a mental image of Jellal and her started to develop in her head—and maybe a quick reminder that she had let him sleep on her shoulder—she quickly tossed aside the whole concept.

What a ridiculous idea.

Erza was quickly distracted by some commotion was going on outside of her booth. Someone seemed to have lost something and was searching desperately for it.

"Are you sure you haven't seen my _neko-neko_?!"

"That's what I'm telling you! I haven't seen any furry anything here!"

"But I could have sworn my _neko-neko_ ran into your booth!"

 _Neko-neko?_ There was only _one_ person that Erza knew that said anything about cats like that.

But she hadn't seen her in—

"Hi, sorry!" the cat woman exclaimed, popping her head into Erza's booth. "Have you seen my—"

The woman's eyes widened, and Erza could tell that for a full second, the woman completely forgot about finding her cat.

"Erza?!"

Indeed, it was her friend back from the foster home! "Millianna!"

"Erza- _chan_!" With the redhead's confirmation that she was indeed the cat woman's old friend, Millianna pounced into Erza's booth and gave her a large embrace. Erza returned the hug, and the two women immediately got to catching up on each other's lives.

"I thought I would never see you again after you left for Fairy Tail!" Millianna exclaimed, small happy tears in her eyes.

"I see you still love cats," Erza observed, with a wide smile.

Nothing had changed too much about Millianna—she still had golden brown hair, and although it was a bit longer, feline-like ears still popped out from her head—a hairstyle that Erza had never seen the girl without. Millianna still donned the scarlet-colored whisker-like markings on her face.

Although—and Erza caught herself looking there—Millianna had developed quite a bit, and she wasn't shy about showing it, practically wearing just a bra and something that looked like stockings and lingerie for her legs. Around her neck was a dark cape—heaven forbid she needed some coverage one day.

"You haven't changed at all either, Erza!" Millianna remarked. "Your hair is longer—and now you wear armor, but you're still the same as I saw you before you left! Why didn't you come visit us? Too busy with your guild jobs and having fun with your guild friends?"

"I guess," Erza admitted.

"You remember Jellal?"

The redhead still wasn't used to his name, and when the brunette mentioned it, Erza almost stuttered and gave herself away. Why did he have to show up in every conversation that she had had today?

"…Yeah, what about him?"

Then the feline-loving girl leaned closer to her, whispering into her ear. "He was _really_ upset about you leaving, you know. _Especially_ because you didn't say bye to him before you left."

"Oh," Erza said, and then turned her eyes away from Millianna's huge observing ones. "Well, I was mad at him then."

"I know, I know," Millianna said, waving her friend's comment off. "But I just wanted to let you know since he left the foster home a few days after you left. We all thought that he went looking for you or something."

Erza didn't try to connect the dots, but the thought that Jellal might have been looking for her the entire ten-something years they had been separated slightly embarrassed her.

"Well that's ridiculous," she said, off the top of her head. "If he had actually been looking for me, he probably should have just come to Fairy Tail."

"Oh, so you haven't seen him yet at all, Erza- _chan_?"

"No," the warrrioress lied, trying not to look flustered.

Why was she lying?

"Ah, well, none of us have seen him since he left the foster home—I was starting to worry that maybe something happened to him!" Millianna mused. "But Jellal is strong, right? Jellal can probably take care of himself."

"Yeah…" Erza agreed. She attempted to change the subject. "But Millianna—what are you doing here?"

"I'm going to the Cait Shelter!" Millianna exclaimed, throwing her hands—rather, paws—up into the air. "I hear there's a guild full of cats just north of Clover Town!"

 _Of course,_ and Erza couldn't help but smile.

"I lost my _neko-neko_ earlier though! She just slipped out of my hands—I have to find her before I have to get off!"

"I'm getting off at the Clover Town stop, too," Erza said. "I'll help you look for her."

"Really?!" Millianna didn't seem like she could be any more pleased. "Thank you, Erza- _chan_!"

"In fact, I have just the armor for this," the requip warrior said, and then with a quick use of her specialty magic she emerged back into the world, wearing her Cat Armor—a periwinkle-and-plum striped one piece, complete with white cat ears on her head and white paw gloves over her hands.

Millianna made a sound that could only be described as a mewl."Erza- _chan_! You look fantastic!"

"I do?" and Erza posed, jutting the right side of her hip out and dramatically leaning her head against her paw. "Well, thank you."

And the two feline women thusly stepped out into the train, harassing everyone on the entire train about a cat.

 **at Clover Town**

"Thank you so much for helping me finally locate Keiko- _chan_!" Millianna thanked Erza again, rubbing the tabby cat's fur against her cheek. The orange-furred cat returned a purr to her owner, before the two of them rushed off the train, heading towards their next ride to Cait Shelter.

Erza stepped off the train as well, breathing in the fresh air of the country side. Then she noticed a familiar cloaked figure standing off to the right, seeming to have been waiting for the train.

"Jellal?!" Millianna exclaimed first, before Erza, and the cat-lover quickly rushed over to give the dark-blue haired man a big embrace, which the man returned.

Millianna looked back at Erza. "Look, Erza- _chan_! It's Jellal!"

The redhead stared for a moment, wide-eyed. What the hell was he doing here? Had he known that she was going to come here and waited for her _here_?

She obligingly glided over, stepping to the right of Millianna.

"Millianna," Jellal greeted back. "I haven't seen you in a long time."

"Erza- _chan_ and I were _just_ talking about you!"

"Oh yeah?" he said, and he looked up at Erza, giving her a discreet wink.

Erza subsequently turned red all over.

"Yeah—it's so funny to see you here! What are you doing here? Where did you go after all this time? Why didn't you come back to visit the shelter?" Millianna continued, pestering him with more questions.

Jellal gave a soft laugh. "I can't answer all your questions at once, Millianna."

"Well then, what are you doing here?" the brunette demanded, and the cat in her hands added a meow in the same tone.

He smiled. "To see Erza, of course," he replied.

To this, Millianna looked back at Erza, questioning.

But Erza was caught unprepared.

What did he think he was doing?! How was she going to explain to Millianna how Jellal just happened to meet up with her if she apparently hadn't seen him since she left the foster home?!

"U-uh. I…" she stuttered.

Millianna's eyes suddenly relaxed, seeming to completely understand what the entire situation—although Erza wasn't sure exactly what Millianna was understanding, because Erza had no idea what was going on herself.

" _Sou ka_ ," Millianna said, with bright eyes, nodding. "I get it."

And she pulled away from her embrace with Jellal and stepped off in the direction of her next ride to Cait Shelter. She turned and waved goodbye to them. "Well, I'll see you later then? Thanks for helping me find Keiko- _chan_ , Erza!"

Erza could only sheepishly wave back.

With that, the feline-o-phile bounced off, leaving just the two of them standing together.

When Erza was certain that Milliana was out of hearing range, she turned toward Jellal.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him, immediately and sternly. She was _not_ happy about whatever conclusions Millianna had made about the two of them, because no matter what conclusion the cat lover came to, Jellal and Erza were definitely not that.

"We're getting the milk, butter, and heavy cream you need for your strawberry shortcake today, right?" he asked her, and when she didn't correct him, he continued, "I knew you would only get the best ingredients for your shortcake, and Clover Town is most known for their dairy farms."

The redhead didn't admit that he was spot on in predicting her actions, although the fact that the two of them were on the same wavelength gave her a warm stir in her heart. She resorted to swiveling on her heel and heading in the direction of the farm that she had previously scouted out while doing her research in the guild. He followed after her, and she made sure that she was always at least one step in front of him.

That was, until someone pulled her tail—or at least, the tail on her Cat Armor.

Erza gasped, looking behind her, and upon seeing twinkle in Jellal's eyes, realized that the man had been playing around with the backend of her Cat Armor. She grabbed her tail away from him, tucking it behind herself, and scolded him.

"Hey!" she said.

He gave her a broad smile. "You look cute, Erza," he said, simple and straightforward.

And just like how he had made her blush when he winked at her earlier, his compliment was causing heat to rise in her cheeks. Again, she was hyper-aware that she wasn't wearing very much beyond the small furry pieces of clothing.

But she wasn't just about to requip right now. She didn't want to make it seem like she was requipping just because she was embarrassed by him noticing her Cat Armor either!

Erza cursed at herself for forgetting to change back into her casual armor gear after they had found Millianna's cat. They had just found Keiko- _chan_ once they got to the station, though, and Erza didn't have much more time after that before Millianna noticed Jellal standing at the corner of the station.

"T-Thank you," she said, slightly flustered and frustrated that she was caught in this kind of a situation again.

The two of them then walked out of the station, starting down the path toward the farm.

Erza, of course, made sure that she was the one leading, but at some point, her curiosity got the better of her and she stopped to let him catch up to her. He looked up at her.

"Millianna told me that you left the foster home," she told him.

"Yeah," he confirmed. "I left just after you, actually."

She nodded, not giving him the hint that her friend had already told her that information. "Where'd you go?" she asked, instead.

"Around," he replied. "I didn't really have any place to go or any place to be." He paused before realizing that he probably wasn't answering her question comprehensively. "I went to learn magic."

He smiled. "I thought that if Erza was going to learn to be stronger, then I should grow stronger as well."

 **at the farm**

Erza and Jellal arrived at the farm that she had pointed out earlier. This was _the_ farm, she had attested, having eye-assessed the grazing cows and the green pastures.

The farmer in front of them, however, didn't seem too excited about doing business with a woman in a cat suit and a man with an unorthodox tattoo over his left eye.

" _Da. Ka. Ra_ ," the farmer enunciated, stressing every single syllable. "The cows have already been milked today—you can't just walk in and decide that you want to milk _my_ cows."

The Fairy Queen was not going to let up so easily. "I came early this morning just to do that!"

"Well, it looks like I woke up earlier than you," the farmer shot back, gripping his pitchfork a little bit more tightly and more vigorously chewing on a piece of long grass.

Erza wasn't going to take no for an answer. "Well—I'll just come back tomorrow then—earlier!"

It seemed that her opponent wasn't quitting easily. "Oh yeah? Well I'll just wake up _even_ earlier!"

The redhead was _not_ pleased about this obstacle to obtaining the key dairy ingredients for her most perfect strawberry shortcake.

"We'll just purchase the milk, heavy cream, and butter from you then," Jellal suddenly said.

"Jellal!" Erza exclaimed. She was furious that he would even make a concession like that! If she was making the _most perfect_ strawberry shortcake, then she was going to see it to the end that she got the _most perfect_ ingredients from start to finish.

She felt him take her to the side to have a quick private conversation. She still wasn't happy with the stupid decision he had just made and she made it known to him that she didn't appreciate him taking over the conversation.

"What are you doing?" she asked him, angrily. He was ruining all the plans!

"Trust me, Erza," he said. "You don't want to wait one extra day to get these three ingredients—and the cows are going to be the same cows. The products are all going to be the same quality, probably better if the farmer did it because he's experienced." He looked at her unforgiving face. "Also I hear churning butter takes a lot of time," he added.

However, if anything, Erza was more up to take the challenge to achieve better quality than the farmer, at whatever cost and effort it took. It was _her_ most perfect strawberry shortcake and she had succeeded so far in getting the strawberries and sugar necessary.

"Here, I'll buy it then—and we'll try it out later today, okay?" he suggested. "And if you're not happy with it, we'll wake up extra early to come and milk the cows, churn the butter—everything!—ourselves, okay?"

The scarlet-haired warrioress still wasn't happy about the proposal—mostly because Jellal was taking the reins of her mission to make the most perfect strawberry shortcake. It wasn't even his mission or anything! And she never asked for his help in the first place! Who was he to go around making decisions for her regarding _her_ most perfect strawberry shortcake?!

Her face showed her thoughts precisely.

"I'll get it for you, okay, Erza? If you're not happy with it, it's my fault, okay?"

She didn't uncross her arms or give him any sign that she was consenting to the actions, but he went ahead and made the transaction anyway, handing the farmer a couple of gold coins.

"Only your best milk, butter, and heavy cream, please," Jellal said, politely.

Seeing the gold coins in his hands, the farmer suddenly seemed very pleased at the whole situation and very happily went to go get the ingredients requested.

Jellal turned back to the still fuming Erza, giving her a crooked smile. "You're still mad?"

Seeing the good intention written all over his face, Erza found that she couldn't stay mad at him for very long. Her arms remained crossed together, but her eyebrows leveled out.

She also couldn't help but lift the corners of her mouth into a smile when she saw the ingredients that the farmer had fetched for them—as much as she would have preferred doing everything from scratch, there was just something about realizing that she was now halfway done with her ingredient gathering for her most perfect strawberry shortcake—that is, if she accepted the ingredients as they were.

Jellal took the crate that the farmer had prepared for them into his arms. "Thank you, sir," he told the farmer, who spit on the floor in response. The blue-haired man turned toward Erza. "Let's go back and try these ingredients, yeah?"

Erza nodded, deciding that Jellal's idea might not have been bad after all. She grew slightly embarrassed that she had made a whole fuss about everything to start with. The redhead reached her arms out, silently offering to take the load off the man's arms, but he refused to give her the weight of the dairy products.

 _At least we got the things we need…_ she thought to herself.

Wait—where were they going to 'go back and try these ingredients'? And…since when did Erza start thinking in terms of 'we' and not in terms of herself?

She looked back at Jellal, who seemed to read her face exactly.

"Back to your guild, right? Back to Fairy Tail?"

She hesitated, before realizing that there wasn't really any other place to put her ingredient anyway, and didn't argue about the location.

She did, however, start to worry about how her _nakama_ would react when they saw her bring home a handsome young man that looked suspiciously like the Jellal that everyone teased her about.

It was already bad enough that Millianna was suspecting _something_.

To Erza, the worst thing that could happen was all of Fairy Tail even remotely knowing.

 **back at Fairy Tail**

Erza made sure that they entered the guild from the back entrance, where surely no one would notice that she was bringing an extra person into the building that day. Ultimately her choice made a lot more sense too, since the kitchen was much closer from behind than from the main gates of Fairy Tail.

 _Please don't let anyone see us,_ she prayed in her head, scurrying from one side of the hall to the next.

"Come," she whispered, telling him to follow as inconspicuously as possible. She rounded a few corners, making sure to check if anyone was there before waving Jellal over to signal that the coast was clear.

He didn't seem to care though—taking his time walking over from one point to another, with the large crate full of dairy products still in his arms—which frustrated her quite a bit. It didn't help that she was already frustrated that she wasn't able to obtain the _most perfect_ dairy products from the cows herself.

When they finally reached the kitchen, Erza instructed Jellal to place the products into the refrigerator as soon as possible. He did as she said, but left two glasses of heavy cream out on the counter. When she asked him what he was thinking, he answered straightforward and in a matter-of-fact way.

"We're trying out the heavy cream."

Her lips twisted. She _had_ agreed to purchasing the farmer's products and then returning to Fairy Tail to do just that. As much as she was sure that these ingredients weren't going to eventually make it into her _most perfect_ strawberry shortcake, she couldn't argue against trying them…

"How are we going to do that?" she challenged him.

But the answer was very obvious to him. "Make a strawberry parfait," he told her.

She blinked. She had to admit that sounded very appetizing at the moment…

"Where are we going to get the strawberries?"

"Oh, I bought some along with the other stuff while we were in Clover Town," and Jellal produced a carton of strawberries from the crate that she hadn't previously noticed.

She stared at the strawberries and the heavy cream for a moment. Indeed, having a parfait did sound very good right now. She couldn't quite argue with that—perhaps coming back to Fairy Tail to try out the heavy cream wasn't a bad idea at all.

"Okay," he told her, clapping and rubbing his hands together. " _Hajimemashou ka?_ Let's start."

"Mmm," she agreed, nodding her head vigorously.

She waited for him to give her instruction. They locked eyes for a few seconds.

Confused, she blinked again. "So…what do we do?"

He looked at her weirdly for another second, before realization flashed in his eyes.

"You don't know how to make a parfait, do you?" he asked her.

She looked down shyly and then shook her head, embarrassed. She didn't want to admit it to him, but although she very much loved food in general, she had no idea left or right in the kitchen.

He laughed softly. "Do you know how to make a strawberry shortcake?"

Erza made a face. "No…" she admitted, under her breath.

She could do many other things—defeat 100 monsters, intimidate Gray and Natsu, requip twice in a second—but cooking was not one of her many talents.

Jellal smiled, not taking the opportunity to mock her about how she was going to figure out how to make her _most perfect_ strawberry shortcake without knowledge whatsoever about baking.

"Okay, why don't we start by looking a little more ready?"

Ah, indeed. He was right—she was scantily clad in her Cat Armor still and he was practically ready to go out in the battlefield. Erza thought of requipping her casual Heart Kreuz armor but she decided that maybe she should requip into something that would allow her to focus on more domestic things.

She thusly requipped into her Apron Armor—which was essentially just her standard clothing with a Heart Kreuz apron over it. This was her first time using the armor, and to be honest, she still wasn't sure what the offensive or defensive advantages to this particular armor were yet, although she predicted that perhaps she would have double the slicing and triple the stirring ability.

Her blue-haired friend removed his armor by hand, first taking off his thick cloak. She walked over to help him remove the armor from his chest, and when she reached up to pull off the warm metal, she felt some heat rise to her cheeks.

Something about the mundane action of taking off his armor made her feel very flushed. She couldn't pinpoint the reason why, but she guessed it had to do something with the fact that the metal of his armor was warm, probably as warm as the surface of his skin.

"I-I'll put it down h-here," she told him, setting the chest plate on the floor, leaning against the counter.

He nodded, placing his cloak in the same pile. He turned fully towards her and she avoided the temptation to stare at his unarmored body—wearing a very complimenting form-fitting black short-sleeved bodysuit tucked into heavyweight black cargo pants—so that she wouldn't blush any more than she felt she was already.

"Let's wash the strawberries and slice them up," he said, and unfortunately for her, when she looked up to hear what he had to say, she couldn't handle his intense gaze either.

"Y-yeah," the redhead said, nodding. She located a big bowl from the top counter of the kitchen and tossed all the strawberries into it, running them all under water soon after.

"You look ready," he said, and although he was talking from behind her, she could hear the smile in his voice. "Nice apron."

Upon hearing his words, she almost dropped a ton of strawberries into the sink.

 _Don't react to his words like that_ , she reminded herself.

She shook the nervousness out of herself and just finished washing all the fruit, bringing the rinsed berries to the counter. She looked at him to see what he thought, and caught him still looking at her. He pretended that he hadn't been staring at her, and she swore she saw a light blush on his cheeks.

"What?" she asked, as sternly as she could, but she felt her voice quaver and her own cheeks heat up.

Had he been watching her the entire time?

"N-nothing," he said, avoiding her eyes. "You just…look nice."

Erza's face was burning, and she looked down at the strawberries, which probably matched the color of her cheeks. What was he trying to get at by saying that?

"So…we slice them now right?" she asked, quickly changing the subject. "In quarters?"

He nodded, taking a couple of strawberries in one hand and then laying them on the chopping board before he did just that. Titania probably could have requipped her blades and chopped all the strawberries with her magic in just a second, but she was a bit mesmerized by how quickly he was cutting that she decided she would just watch him as he sliced off the strawberry greens and subsequently quartered the fruit.

She sneakily picked up one of the strawberry butts that he had tossed off to the side of the chopping board and nibbled at the red around the core.

"Hey," he said, in an irritated way, except the smile on his face gave away his true feelings on the matter.

She took another strawberry butt and stuck her tongue out at him, before eating it.

Erza wasn't quite sure what possessed her at the time, but she thought the best way to remove the fake pout off his face was by letting him taste one of these strawberry butts so that he knew he wasn't missing out on anything. She lifted another strawberry butt from the chopping board by its leaves and raised it up to his lips.

He stared at the strawberry that she was offering, cross-eyed for a moment, and then cautiously took a bite from the fruit she put in front of his lips. After swallowing the little morsel, he held the remainder of the strawberry butt between his teeth, taking it from her fingers, and continued to cut the rest of the strawberries left. She felt a smile lifting on her lips, seeing him suck on the strawberry piece.

 _Cute_ , she thought, before she scolded herself for the thought. _Wait, stop thinking that about him._

He left a few strawberries whole, and when she questioned him about it, he pulled the strawberry butt out of his mouth with his strawberry-juice stained hands before answering.

"For decoration," he said.

She smiled, lightly biting her lip.

He walked over to the sink to wash off his hands. She snuck a look at his figure from behind.

"Do you know how to make whipped cream, Erza?"

"No…" she admitted, forcing herself to turn her body around so that she wouldn't look at him.

He brought two bowls back to the counter, each with whisks in them. After popping open both bottles of heavy cream, he poured one of each into the bowls, then tossed a bit of sugar into them.

"So you whip the cream until it turns into stiff peaks," he told her, showing her a couple of stirs with his whisk.

Erza looked down at her bowl of heavy cream and whisk. She picked up the whisk with her right hand and started mimicking his actions.

After about a minute, the heavy cream looked like it was still quite liquidy.

"It'll take a while," he told her, as if he had read her mind.

So she set her eyes back on the heavy cream and channeled her energy into the whisk, beating the heavy cream hyperspeed, until she started to feel it thickening and changing its state.

"Stiff peaks!" she exclaimed, as if she was trying to prove that she was actually capable of something in an environment where she honestly had no idea what she was doing.

He looked to see her bowl of freshly whipped cream and poked at one of her peaks.

"Ah," he said, pulling away his finger from the whipped cream.

Did her whipped cream just _prick_ him?

"That's a _really_ stiff peak," he agreed, with a wry smile. "Maybe too stiff."

Erza huffed, disappointed that she hadn't done it right the first time. Who knew that baking was actually difficult? Judging by the way that she had to concentrate while whipping the cream, she figured that actually baking the _most perfect strawberry shortcake_ would probably take as much effort as did winning the Grand Magic Games.

He smiled. "You always go above and beyond," he said, simply.

The redhead frowned, looking at her bowl. She picked her bowl of cream up and compared it with that of which Jellal had created, which looked a lot more cloud-like and much more recognizable as whipped cream.

She stuck her finger in it, feeling the airy softness of the cream. She licked it off her finger and was very surprised at what she was tasting.

This may have been the _most perfect_ whipped cream for her most perfect strawberry shortcake.

She guessed he could be right about _some_ things.

At least about whipped cream.

"Good?" he asked her.

She nodded vigorously, getting excited to assemble the whole parfait and eat it.

He grabbed two glass cups and spoons, handing her a set. They quickly got to layering the whipped cream over the strawberries and the strawberries over the whipped cream until reaching the brim of the cup.

Erza added an extra two scoops of whipped cream on top of her own and dug in, spooning out a heavenly scoop of strawberries and whipped cream.

"Wait, wait," Jellal said, then reached behind him and plopped a whole strawberry on top of her concoction but she didn't wait much longer after that to eat a bite of the parfait.

Her eyes almost rolled back to the back of her head as the components of the dessert just melted in her mouth. How could something this simple taste _so_ good?

"Good enough for your strawberry shortcake?" he asked her, after taking a bite himself.

She made a face that told him that she wasn't ready to make a decision on that yet, but that she was thoroughly happy with what they had made in the kitchen that day. There was a dot of whipped cream on his lip, and she giggled when pointing it out with her spoon.

 _I just giggled,_ she thought to herself. _What?_

His face turned shy and he immediately rose the back of his hand to his mouth to wipe off the clumsy evidence. She laughed softly before returning back to the dessert, which quite frankly was very delightful.

The dessert almost made her forget where she was and what she was doing, but then the door to the kitchen opened.

Her eyes shot to the door and her muscles tensed, on edge and ready to strike. But then she remembered that she was in Fairy Tail and that the person behind the door was probably one of her comrades, so she couldn't fight them. But she wouldn't want whoever was behind the door to know that she was in the kitchen with a non-Fairy Tail person that happened to look like the mysterious Jellal person that Mira probably told everyone about the day before. She had to hide Jellal, but she didn't want to kick him or shove him under the counter and hurt him, but she couldn't just leave him there either because then _everyone_ would know—

All these thoughts raced through her head, confusing her muscles, and at the end of her mental debates, she was left, just frozen, wide-eyed, staring at the door.

"Hm?" a sleepy blond Dragon Slayer yawned, as he casually swung the door open.

His glazy blue eyes tiredly grazed over the sight of Erza and Jellal, and by the looks of it, he was not processing anything that he was seeing at the moment.

"Laxus!" Erza gasped, but noticed that her fellow S-Class Mage paid no attention and probably couldn't hear her over the rock and roll blasting over his headphones.

The lightning mage went straight for the refrigerator, ignoring everything else on the shelves except for the cans of iced coffee along the sides. He popped it open with one hand and started chugging the caffeine down, all while walking out of the kitchen again.

Jellal was the first to break the silence after the kitchen door slammed shut.

"Almost caught, huh?" he commented.

"Y-yeah," she said, with a nervous laugh. Seemed like Laxus was so tired that he didn't even notice that anyone was in the kitchen—much less, _who_ was in the kitchen. She breathed a mental sigh of relief before turning back to the cluttered counter. "L-let's clean up now, shall we?"

He agreed, quickly finishing up the last of his parfait and starting to throw things into the sink.

"Are you done for the day, Erza?" he asked her.

She glanced over at the clock on the wall. It was barely past noon.

"No," she said. "It's just enough time to get some salt!"

* * *

 **Haha, longer chapter than usual, but hopefully this was good!**

 **I sorta took the fluffiness of the story to the next level, which I admit I'm not particularly good at. Fluff is not my genre—I'm more of an angst/dark kind of a person. Plus I hope the baking details didn't tire anyone out. :P. I'm a little bit sweet-obsessed myself.**

 **Would love to hear from you, but until next time,**

 **thir13enth**


	5. the salt

**Hey everyone! Hope that you all are gearing up for the upcoming holiday seasons!**

 **(I most certainly am not, and instead am dreading the extra amount of work that I've piled on myself from past procrastination. No regrets, I tell myself, as I drink bitter tears and sweat.)**

 **Anyway, please do enjoy!**

* * *

 **the salt**

* * *

Erza was being dead serious about her strawberry shortcake, and even if she only needed the tiniest teaspoon of salt—she was only going to get the _most perfect_ teaspoon of salt.

"Akane Resort?"

"Yes," the redhead affirmed. "The beach right by it has the clearest waters in all of Fiore—it would be the perfect place to gather salt."

Without letting him question her further about her decisions, she dragged him onto the train headed in the direction of Akane Beach. She was in a _great_ mood, having gotten all the dairy ingredients from Clover Town this morning, taking a break and making dessert just around noon, and now she was on her way of getting the next ingredient for her most perfect strawberry shortcake.

Her mission would be complete in no time. Victory was close. She could almost taste it.

Once the train arrived at the Akane Beach station, she popped out of the cabin as soon as the wheels stopped turning and ran out, following the gradual increase of sand along the trail leading to the beach. If she were to be done in the next few hours, she would be able to go ahead and get the next ingredient before nightfall. Erza hummed to herself—all in a day's work.

Erza being Erza, she was very prepared for the few hours she would spend on the beach, and upon finding the perfect spot of white sand, she requipped into her Legendary Swimsuit and lay a towel over the sand, posting a large umbrella into the ground right next to it.

Jellal finally caught up with her enthusiasm by then, arriving to the spot of sand that she had claimed for them. His eyes widened when he saw the golden, very revealing swimsuit that his companion donned.

"You're wearing…that?" he asked her.

She turned to fully face him. "Of course!" she announced. "I must be at my best when I'm collecting the most perfect salt for my most perfect strawberry shortcake!"

She saw him gulp, not thinking too much of it, but little did she know that he was remembering a special day when they were younger—a day when a group of the foster kids had gone to Ryuzetsu Land. The kids had dared each other to go onto the "adult" LoveLoveSlider and tested each other's bravery. Of course, Erza had decided that she was going to conquer the LoveLoveSlider and chose Jellal to accompany her on the slide, as much as he had protested that he didn't want to go. Granted, she had been wearing another swimsuit when she was little but he still remembered how strongly she had clutched onto him all the way down the ride, her warm skin pressed right up against him.

The queen of Fairies pointed at him in return. "And you're wearing _that_?" she asked him, in the same mocking voice, motioning toward his heavy clothing, armor, and cloak.

He looked down at himself and shrugged, taking a seat in the shade. "We'll only be here for a little bit, right? I can take the heat for now."

Titania wasn't going to take that as an answer.

"It's too hot for what you're wearing. And you'll attract a lot of attention because you're dressed weird," she told him, but didn't want to waste time arguing with him. She requipped a jar and started heading to the ocean, turning her head back to yell at him. "Well, you better be changed by the time that I'm done!"

He didn't look like he was going to do that, instead electing to sit there with all his armor on, miserable in the hot glory of the sun.

She shook her head to herself, deeming him just a bit crazy, and continued on her way to the ocean. She tested the temperature by putting her big toe into the water, but the tide washed up water all the way up to her ankles. She shivered at the surprise but was happy to feel that the water was perfect—much cooler than the air, but not cold enough that she couldn't just hop in.

Keeping her jar in her hand, Erza walked a little further off the shore, until the beach dropped off and she was standing in waist-deep water. She wiggled around her feet in the soft sand underneath her, appreciating that there weren't any rocks jabbing at her bare feet. Finally, she ducked under the crystal blue waters and let the cool ocean envelop here.

Arising from the water's surface, she blinked away the salt from her eyes and looked down at the beautiful horizon, thinking about everything that had happened in the last couple of days.

She was really grateful that she was able to bump into two of her foster home friends—it was almost like they had timed seeing each other perfectly. First, Jellal on Mt. Jasmine and then Millianna on her way to Clover Town. Seeing people from her past began to make her feel complete again—as though she did have a history before coming to Fairy Tail.

Natsu had Igneel, Gray had Ul, and Lucy had her family, but sometimes she felt that everyone forgot that Erza was anything except being a Fairy Tail mage. Erza didn't have much to say because as time passed, she slowly forgot everything that she had experienced before coming to the guild too.

But since stumbling upon Jellal, memories were starting to come back to her. Names and faces were beginning to develop meaning again, and she finally felt a growing sense of closure with her life, as if she hadn't just dropped everything from when she was a child.

Of course, it wasn't all perfect, and it seemed like Jellal was still a big mystery to her, but the past few days proved to her that the two of them still shared a bond that outlasted time. There were still some kinks to work out—she wasn't sure if he had forgiven her yet for just leaving the foster home without saying goodbye, and she was still wrestling with the whole idea of feeling close to someone that she hadn't seen in almost ten years.

Erza was still surprised herself at how close Jellal and her had become—or re-become—since the day before yesterday. In fact, she had to admit that she appreciated the support that she was getting from him to make the most perfect strawberry shortcake, from keeping her company on the train to making strawberry parfaits in their free time.

She smiled to herself before rinsing the jar with a bit of ocean water and then scooping some fresh seawater into the jar. She looked at the water and hummed in amusement, seeing its clarity. She would filter this later, and let it boil and dry out, but for now, the water was looking very good already.

Erza placed the lid on her jar and started wadding her way back to the sand, back to the sandy spot that she had claimed.

When seeing that Jellal had tossed aside his armor and was wearing a pair of swim trunks, she was surprised that he had eventually listened to her command.

But she was even more surprised that even though his attire was no longer "weird," he had still garnered a lot of attention. In fact, that of five women.

He was standing laidback, arms crossed, and chatting away with the group of five, who were standing a little bit too close to him for Erza's comfort. Jellal exchanged some words with them, and then all the women laughed, with her hands covering their mouths.

What was so funny? She could hear their giggling from where she stood in the water. Erza scowled and slowed her ascent up the sand, allowing herself to observe Jellal and the women a little bit longer.

A blond girl, in dark blue bikini, smiled up at him with doe eyes. She nodded her head to whatever he was saying, before discreetly feeling up his arm. Upon doing so, she gasped and pulled him in closer to the circle of women, pointing at his muscle. The women subsequently went and touched his supposed biceps before turning back to him and remarking about his strength.

At least, that's what Erza could guess was happening, based on what she was seeing from afar.

Why he so cool that everyone just wanted to get to know him? Was he so attractive that no one could resist talking to him? What made him so special?

After a moment, Erza realized that she was standing still and just rudely staring at their interactions, so she decided that it was best for her to just drag him out of the situation. So she approached, silently at first, but her steps grew more fierce and hurried as she began to be able to hear the women's high-pitched flirting with Jellal.

Jellal noticed her when she was a couple of feet away.

"Oh Erza—"

She grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the circle of women, walking him back to their spot of sand.

"You got your saltwater, Erza?" he asked, a little stilted, noticing her light fury.

Without a word, she showed him the ocean water that she had gathered in her jar.

"Erza, are you mad?"

She crossed her arms. "No," she said. "Who were those people?"

"Oh, them?" he asked, and he looked up to the side at the women before waving goodbye with a big smile on his face. His face turned back to face her. "They let me have these swim trunks. One of them had an older brother and they got an extra from him."

Jellal looked at her jar. "Is that all the saltwater you're going to get?"

Her eyebrow twitched, and the next thing she knew, she had dumped all the contents of the jar onto his head.

He waited for the water to run down his head before opening a single eye to look at her, with a foolish grin on his face. "Hey! What was that for?"

She wasn't amused. She turned on her heel and quickly walked back to the water, intending to refill her now-empty jar with more ocean water. She heard him follow after her, asking her why she was mad.

He was still asking her why she was upset, even by the time they got to waist-deep water.

"I'm not upset!" she retorted, angrily.

She turned around to look at him, seeing a goofy but confused smile on his face.

"I'm sorry, Erza. What did I do?" he asked, with a really concerned look in his eyes.

 _Yeah, what_ did _he do?_ she asked herself, reminding herself that the man had been only been socializing. Why was she suddenly so upset about that?

She wasn't… _jealous_ , was she?

That would have been quite petty. And _jealous_? Of course, she wasn't jealous—it wasn't like Jellal was her boyfriend or anything…

"Nothing," she said, trying to mollify herself.

But then she thought—how petty was it for her to be very clearly mad but then deny that she was mad? After some quick mulling over the whole topic, she decided that she would just come clean with him and tell him that she was mad that he was talking to so many other people and not her—be truthful and just tell him.

She turned around. "I was just—"

And received a big splash of salty water in her face. She tasted the bitter salt on her tongue and slowly opened her eyes, confirming that Jellal was indeed the person that had splashed her.

Oh, _now_ she was upset.

Erza reached down and pushed a wave of water at him, getting him completely soaked. She scooped up another round of ocean water in her jar and then tossed at him once he had recovered from her previous attack—just for extra measure. She laughed, seeing his hair wet and splayed all over his face.

Jellal slicked his hair back over his head, a mischievous glint in his eyes. Before she was able to scoop another jar of water at him, he pushed her into the water. She attempted to stand tall but her knees buckled and she went completely under the surface. Immediately she got back onto her feet and shook the ocean off her face, then took the entire length of her hair and flicked water from it back at him, continuously.

He guarded his face with his hands. "Okay, okay, I surrender," he said.

She flicked him a couple more times for fun, and after she calmed down from the playful scuffle, she refilled her jar with ocean water, this time, tightly screwing the lid back in place.

When she turned around, she didn't expect him to be right behind her, and she lightly blushed at the closeness, noting that she was getting a very good view of his well-developed body. His warm hand was on her shoulder and he was looking directly into her eyes.

"Remember when we went to Ryuzetsu Land?" he asked her.

Honestly, Erza would have never remembered it at all if he hadn't reminded her. A certain water ride came to mind—the LoveLoveSlider—and she flushed upon remembering that the two of them had ridden that one together.

"Yeah…" she answered. His hand began to grow very warm on her shoulder.

"We had fun that day, huh?" he said.

She nodded. Feeling immensely awkward, she did the first thing that she could think to do—lifted her hand up to his head and messed around with his hair, as if she was petting him.

He looked very confused by her actions. "Are you still mad at me?"

Erza was feeling ever more awkward. This time she did the second thing that she could think to do—and pushed him into the water.

"Hey!" he yelped, stumbling backwards.

She quickly backed up and started running out of the water, laughing as he chased after her.

* * *

 **Aw, more fluff. Short chapter, but hopefully y'all enjoyed it! Also totally worrying about the OOC-ness of the characters (or at least, I feel that way). Let me know what y'all think! Would love to know what's going on in those minds of yours. :P**

 **thir13enth**


	6. the flour

**I'm going to apologize for not getting back into this story for more than a month! Had lots of one-shots to write in the meantime, but it's also very exciting for me to realize that this story is going to come to a close as well. :D**

 **Love to all the reviewers and readers and followers. You all deserve so much the conclusion of this story and I can at least give that to you!**

 **Anyway, this is by far the longest chapter so far. (My fault for separating chapters by ingredients rather than by sequence). There's some more of the AU stuff pops up in this chapter, so bear with me as I rewrite the world a tad bit!**

* * *

 **the flour**

* * *

After washing the salt out of their hair and off their skin, Erza and Jellal planned out their next destination.

"Thanks for letting me use your shower," he said, rubbing his blue hair into one of her towels.

"You can leave the towel on the chair over there," she replied, trying to ignore the fact that yes, she had let someone that she had only re-met three days ago strip naked and take a shower in her bathroom.

Erza sat on the far other end of the room, her legs crossed and ready to go. She watched Jellal wrap his cloak around his body before leaving the towel, as instructed over the chair. He then strolled over to her, and she caught a whiff of freshness from his still-damp hair.

"Are we sneaking around again to get out?" he asked her.

Titania nodded, picking herself up and turning around to face the window. She gracefully lifted the heavy glass without a struggle and motioned for him to go before her. He looked out, not even hesitating at the height from the ground from her three-story room, and stepped off and over the windowsill. She watched him land with a soft thud onto the ground, his cloak fanning out around him.

He looked back up, extending his arms. "Trust fall, Erza," he said, smiling up at her.

Was she going to let herself fall into his arms? That just seemed a bit too romantic for comfort, but there was a cubic inch of her heart that wanted to feel his safe arms around her waist.

 _Oh, what the hell,_ she thought to herself, as she climbed out of her window. Regardless of whether or not he eventually caught her, she was coming down to the ground anyway. She lifted her foot and fell into the sky, feeling a rush of air blow through her hair. She prepped herself for a landing, bracing her core.

Then, she was thoroughly surprised to never touch the ground. She looked down, seeing that he had caught her just about a foot before she would touch the ground. His arms were secured around her, and his face, which was at her waist's level, smiled up at her to acknowledge that he indeed did catch her.

"Th-thank you," she told him, hiding the fact that she was impressed by how smoothly that had gone down. She wrapped her arms around his neck, supporting herself by his shoulders, and helped herself down to the ground as he let her go.

"So where are we off to next?"

She answered, still a little bit breathless. "To get some flour!"

 **after some brief traveling**

In a small town near Mt. Hakobe, just outside of Magnolia, there was a cozy and small cottage with a large sill, surrounding by oceans of bronze and gold rows of wheat. The impending sunset seemed to cast a halo over the crops, and the command of the wind bowed the tall stalks down toward the ground—all in all, a beautiful and serene farmland scene.

The two of them had taken a magic-powered car out of Magnolia and although it wasn't far of a distance, the drive still took a while through the rural and nature-conserving roads. When they final reached the cottage, a couple of hours had passed, and even Erza had doubts of whether or not they would be able to finish milling the flour they needed before the day ended.

Erza parked the car at the front of the cottage, and the two of them cautiously approached the home, hoping that the farmers inside wouldn't be completely astounded with strangers at their door.

She knocked twice, firmly.

And when the door opened, a look of shock struck each and every one of their faces.

The large man behind the door spoke first. "Erza?!"

"Simon!" the redhead exclaimed, not expecting yet another former foster home friend.

Simon swung the door open wider. "C-come in!" He looked back at the slim, strong-built dark-haired woman behind him. "Kagura—it's Erza! She was one of my best friends from foster home!"

Erza took it as a cue to welcome herself in, and Jellal followed after her. She sat herself down at the humble wooden table that was straight across from the door. Simon and Kagura pulled in chairs from another part of the room, sitting directly across from them, Simon in front of Erza, and his younger sister in front of Jellal.

She barely recognized the siblings. They had grown out of their young and skinny figures into well-tanned and lean farmers, something that Erza could only assume they had been doing since leaving the foster home. Despite this, their natures still seemed about equal—Simon seemed as cheerful and outgoing as ever, and Kagura was as calm and stoic as she last remembered.

"So…what are you doing here?" the brother asked them.

The scarlet-haired woman suddenly remembered that she actually had another purpose coming aside from accidentally bumping into yet another one of her childhood friends.

"Oh," she said, startling herself. "I—" and realized she almost forgot about Jellal, "—we—wanted to mill some flour, and I heard that this farm was the place where we could get the best wheat in all of Fiore. I didn't expect for you to be here, but this is a surprise indeed!"

Simon gave her a broad smile and then put his bulky arm around his sister's shoulders, bringing her in for a sibling side hug. "Well, I'm glad that you heard our wheat is the best! Kagura and I have been working hard on our farm since we left the foster home ten years ago."

"Well it seems that you're doing very well, indeed," Erza agreed, clasping her hands together and resting them on the table. She looked around briefly, seeing the simple and well-lived state of the home.

"It's so good to see you again, though!" Simon exclaimed. "I can't believe that our paths have crossed again." He reached his hands out to cup over her hands—which she immediately noticed were much much larger than hers and at least three times warmer. "What a chance—it's been a very long time! You went to a guild—Fairy Tail, right? Are you still doing jobs with them?"

She nodded. "Yes, and I love my guild very much."

Simon looked over to Erza's right, where Jellal was quietly sitting, avoiding the obvious glare from Simon's younger sister. Some kind of quiet and subtle exchange must have happened between the two men, because Simon suddenly and immediately tucked his hands back into his lap, releasing Erza's hands from under his. Kagura must have taken this as a cue, as she unwillingly joined the conversation.

"Where did _you_ come from?" Kagura asked Jellal, almost in a hiss.

Erza didn't remember if there was tension between Simon, Kagura, and Jellal back when they were foster kids. Kagura was much too young for any amount of the bitterness that she seemed to carry for the man right now. She wondered briefly if something had developed between the two of them since Erza had left the foster home.

"He's with me," Erza defended, saving Jellal the trouble of answering. "He's helping me on this job."

Kagura's hazel eyes slightly narrowed and shifted to glare at Erza. "He's with you?" she asked, heavy disdain in her voice.

Simon decided to break the tension that started to shadow over the table, laughing nervously. "Why don't you join us for dinner? We just finished cooking some stew and were about to eat dinner."

His younger sister shot him a look.

"Of course, we'll show you around the mill and let you get your flour afterwards," he added, with a nervous smile. "But we haven't seen you in a while so let us treat you like guests!"

"Sure," Erza said, not wanting to refuse such a kind request in case it elevated the situation.

Perhaps having food in their stomachs would help ease out the stress in the air.

 **dinner time**

Except that it didn't. Dinner was even more tense, simmering over the quiet table.

"This is really good!" Erza tried, slurping the thick beef stew as loudly as she could. "I didn't know that you could cook, Simon."

"It was really Kagura," Simon said, smiling and looking over at his younger sibling, as if he was encouraging her to come into the conversation.

However, the raven-haired girl was intent on keeping the cloud over her head visible. Her eyes were only down at her soup and spoon, every now and then looking up to glare at the blue-haired man sitting in front of her. Erza could tell that Jellal was sitting uncomfortably in Kagura's gaze, trying not to make any mess of himself and eating as slowly and as carefully as possible.

Simon gave up on his sister and looked back at Erza, with a small smile. "She's a master in the kitchen," he added.

Erza tried to meet Kagura's eyes and give her a smile. She was pretty sure Kagura noticed this through the corner of her eyes, but Kagura didn't seem interested in responding to Erza's friendliness.

"So, why did you decide to grow wheat?" Erza asked, turning her attention back to Simon.

Simon nodded, fully intending to continue the conversation despite the lack of support from the other side of the table

"Our parents grew wheat before the accident," he explained. "When I turned 15, I realized that I wanted to honor our parents' work and try to live the life that they had led. So I asked Kagura to join me and we left the foster home. Eventually we stopped here and decided to build everything from the ground up. It's been a long and difficult time, but we've got to this point, and the business is going well. I feel like we're doing good work, and that we're paying our respects to our parents. The success of our business is making them proud. Right, Kagura?"

His sister was nonresponsive. Jellal didn't say a word either, although Erza could tell that he felt if he opened his mouth, nothing good would come out of the dinnertime conversation.

Eventually, after a couple more spoonfuls, Erza finished her bowl. She didn't want to ask for seconds and prolong the tense dinner, so she stood up from the table, holding her bowl.

"Oh, you can leave that in the sink," Simon told her, also standing up with his empty bowl. "We'll take care of it."

Erza noticed Jellal pushing the rim of the bowl up to his mouth and swallowing the rest of the lukewarm contents down, quickly standing up to join the two of them.

"This was great," he said, the first three words that had come out of his mouth that evening. "Thank you for inviting us for dinner."

"It wasn't really an invitation," Kagura immediately replied. She still sat at the table, committed to the remaining half of her soup.

The three of them pretended to not hear her sharp words, lining up to place their bowls into the sink. Jellal wordlessly fought his way to cleaning the dishes, a responsibility that Simon and Erza didn't want to take away from him. By the time all three of their dishes were cleaned and put away, Kagura was still sitting at the table, determined to not get up until the three of them left the kitchen.

"I'll show you around the mill then," Simon told them, giving them a stiff smile.

The two travelers didn't say it, but they were relieved to get out of the situation and move onto the next one, following Simon out the door.

The soft early evening dusk had settled over the fields, slowly giving the wheat a lavender sheen. The cool wind of the coming night grazed the stalks, rustling through the fields with a soothing static sound.

Simon pointed up toward the sill, pausing to look at the massive establishment that seemed to touch the sky. "We keep all our wheat kernels stocked in there throughout the year, and we mill it continuously through the year," he explained.

"That's amazing," Erza complimented. This must have taken a lot of time and dedication, and Erza admired the siblings for their hard work.

"Here, come. I'll grab you a sack of kernels," he told them. "How many do you need?"

"Just enough to make a cake," Erza told him. "Honestly, I don't know how much that would be."

Simon laughed. "I'll just grab you a pound of kernels," he determined. "Wait here." And the man headed out to do just that.

Once Simon was out of earshot, Erza quickly turned to Jellal. "What was that all about?" she demanded.

"I don't know," her companion replied, an obvious irritation at the edge of his voice.

"You have to know," she retorted, not believing him.

Jellal's eyebrows furrowed together, and Erza decided not to test him any further, since it didn't seem like an easy topic for him.

Simon jogged back to them, a small sack of wheat kernels in his hand. "This should be enough. I'll take you over to the mill."

He led them over to a small attachment of their cottage and turned on the lights. In the center were two large and wide cylinders of stone—one stacked on top of the other—over a wooden trough that had a thin dusty layer of flour over it. This was probably where Simon and Kagura spent the majority of their days—milling flour by the bushel.

"Are you sure that you want to do this? It's not that fascinating or stimulating of work," Simon admitted, looking back at Erza, who adamantly nodded. "I'm surprised that you want to make the flour starting all the way from this process," he said.

Simon poured some kernels of wheat into an opening in the middle of the two large stone cylinders, then walked over to a half-body sized crank on the side. He rotated the crank once, showing them how to use the mill. The cylinder on the top rotated, making a pleasing crunching sound from what Erza presumed were the kernels grinding against the stone.

"Once you've ground the kernels small enough, the flour should fall out there," he explained, pointing to the trough. "If you want it any finer than what this gives you though, you can always run it through the mill again—though I admit that even just milling one pound of kernels might take you a while."

Erza was not turned away by the challenge, crossing her arms and looking confidently at the crank.

"Well, let me know if you run into any issues," Simon said. "I'll be inside."

They both nodded, and the older brother left them to their work, stepping outside of the milling room. Before he completely walked through the door frame however, he turned back to the two of them.

"I'm sorry about Kagura, by the way," he apologized, suddenly.

The redhead took this as an opportunity to ask Simon what had happened. "Why was she upset? Did Jellal do something?"

Simon gave her a crooked smile. "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. I've never seen her this upset before…" He looked over to Jellal, who remained quiet. "I don't think Jellal did anything—maybe my sister wasn't expecting visitors today. Jellal didn't do anything," he reassured her.

Erza wasn't convinced by Simon's answer, but she decided that if it was Kagura that had tension with Jellal, she was better off asking the younger sister.

"Thanks so much, Simon," she told him. "Dinner was great, and I really appreciate you letting us use your mill. How much do you want for this?"

The burly man waved off her question. "It's on me. I can't ask any money from you. We're practically family," he said, leaving the room before she could protest.

"I'll probably leave him something anyway," Erza told Jellal, turning toward him. "Maybe leave some coins on top of the mill so they can't refuse."

Jellal quietly removed his cloak and headed over to the crank to continue milling.

She watched him for a little while before opening her mouth.

"You should apologize," she said.

"I don't know what I'd be apologizing for."

"It doesn't matter—there's obviously something going on."

"How can I apologize when I don't know what I'm apologizing for?" A little frustrated, Jellal stopped cranking the mill and stood to look up at her, challenging her request.

"Well just start by apologizing and figure it out from there!"

"She doesn't seem receptive to that," he murmured under his breath, turning his attention back to milling.

A little angered, Erza stood with her hands on her hips across from Jellal, putting her foot on the crank between them so that he had to stop. "Well, make sure that you resolve that all before we leave tonight."

"Yes, Erza," he sighed, exasperated. He looked up at her so that she could see the promise in his eyes.

Satisfied, she removed her foot from the crank, and the two of them started milling.

Because whether or not Jellal's issues were going to be resolved or not, Erza was going to get her most perfect flour for her most perfect strawberry shortcake.

 **after a long while**

Exhausted, Erza scooped the last of the flour they had ground into the sack. She was impressed at how much work was required to make just the sack of flour that she had in her hand.

Granted, she had insisted that they run the flour through the mill three times so that she could have the finest flour for her cake, so it took perhaps a little bit longer than a normal sack of flour would have, but even the always enthusiastic Fairy Queen had to admit that she was a little dulled out, especially after a day of gathering both the dairy ingredients and the salt beforehand. She did also appreciate that Jellal had helped out for more than half of the flour run—having him around was quite convenient.

She watched him reach side to side, stretching his back. Jellal rolled around his head, trying to relieve the tension at his neck and shoulders. Erza imagined his back muscles—which she knew he had, after earlier in the day on the beach—rippling just under his warm skin, lightly glistening with sweat, but after a moment, she realized it was a little inappropriate for the circumstances and blinked the image out of her mind.

Erza dropped a couple coins onto the mill and then motioned for them to head back into the house to bid the sister and brother farewell…and Jellal could hopefully smooth out the tension between him and Simon's younger sister.

The door was cracked slightly open, as if the siblings were waiting for them to come in for the night.

"Hey," she called, as she pushed the door all the way.

Simon looked up from the paperwork that he was organizing on the table. He smiled. "That was quick. How was it?"

"A lot more work than I expected," Erza told him. "I'm surprised that you can wake up every day and do this."

The raven-haired man gave them a soft smile, accessing their weary eyes. "You both look tired, and it's a bit late," he said. "I was going to ask you to stay the night."

Surprised at the generosity, the Fairy Tail mage shook her head. "No, no, no, you're doing too much for us."

"Kagura's already cleaning out the extra room that we have," Simon said. "It's really not that safe to travel back when you can't see anything. And the roads aren't completely obvious—I'm sure you saw them when you were coming in."

Although Erza was not the type to back down, she noticed a displeased Kagura coming out of another room, carrying a couple of sheets and blankets in her arms. The sister joined her older brother in the room in front of the two of them, her eyes turning to narrow slits again when seeing Jellal.

"So stay for the night, okay?" Simon asked again. "We've already gone through all the trouble."

"I can't believe you're letting them stay," Kagura suddenly said, intentionally out loud.

"I'm sorry," Jellal suddenly said.

"Huh?" Kagura's ears visibly perked up.

"I'm sorry," Jellal repeated, a little more irritated.

Contradictory to Erza's expectations, Kagura's face darkened. "You think just two words are going to pay back for what you did?" she snarled.

"And what did I do?" an unamused Jellal asked.

Kagura stepped forward to confront Jellal, pushing him backwards a couple of feet. Erza's hands whipped out to help Jellal break the impact. Simon quickly tried to restrain his sister, but his sister forced him aside as well, grabbing Jellal by his collar and pushing him up against a wall.

"It's what you did, it's what you _are_ ," Kagura snarled. "Of course you don't know what you did—you're just an asshole."

"Kagura—" Simon interrupted, but his sister took back the attention.

"Simon, don't try to defend him," she told her brother, not taking her eyes off Jellal. Her voice turned into a low rumble as her fist tightened around his cloak. "You don't remember bullying my brother?" she asked him.

Jellal kept his eyes trained on her, silent.

"You don't remember that _one day_ when my brother was going to give a girl that he liked a present for her birthday? And you don't remember seeing it and making fun of my brother for it?" she continued, her voice like a winding snake. "You don't remember telling my brother that the girl wasn't going to like him even if he got her the gift anyway?"

"Kagura, it's okay. I've forgiven him," her brother assured her, trying to stop his sister's confrontation.

"Well, _I_ haven't forgiven him," she scowled, eyes pointing like daggers at Jellal. "And do you remember what you did right after that? You went ahead and gave a present to that _same girl_. As if _you_ had any chance with her, either!"

The blue-haired man gritted his teeth. "I'm sorry, Simon. I'm not going to deny that I've been an asshole in the past."

"That's not even the worst of what you did!" Kagura snapped. "After that, my brother lost his self-confidence and thought no one liked him. After that, my brother didn't think he was good enough—ever! He didn't think that he would ever be as cool as _Jellal_." She said his name like it poisoned her to speak his name from her lips. "It's been a long time since then, but as tall and handsome as my brother is, he is _still_ haunted by the thought that he isn't good enough. And _you_ know whose fault that is, don't you?"

The raven-haired girl slammed Jellal against the wall one last time before letting go of his collar and stepping back.

"I can't even _look_ at you without wanting to strangle you," she spat.

When the room fell quiet, Erza found herself first to break the silence.

"Jellal…is this true?" she asked him.

But Jellal wouldn't meet her eyes. He walked past Kagura to Simon and stuck his hand out.

Simon put both hands out in front of him, waving no. "Jellal, it's okay. That was a long time ago, and I doubt this has everything to do with you."

Jellal was unwavering. "No," he said. "I need to apologize."

After a moment, the older brother took Jellal's handshake.

"I'm sorry about bullying you," Jellal said. "And I hope you know that you're worth a lot more than you think you are."

Simon nodded, and the men shook on that. Kagura looked a little more pleased. Erza still wasn't sure what to think about the whole exchange.

"I-it's getting late," Simon insisted, trying to move on from all that had just gone down. "Why don't I take you to the room we set up? I hope you don't mind that one of you has to take the floor—" He grabbed the sheets and blankets from Kagura's hands. "—but that's why we got out an extra set of bedding so you can place it over the tatami mat."

Erza took the bedding materials from Simon's arms, not wanting to create any more discussion. "Thank you, Simon," she said. "A lot."

And the two pairs broke off.

The redhead waited for her companion to come into the room before closing it firmly behind them.

"See, Jellal?" she told him, with a proud smile on her face. "You resolved it."

Jellal turned away from her and rolled out the tatami mat that was lying in the corner of the room. He didn't still didn't seem comfortable, and something was obviously still bothering him.

"Jellal?"

"I'll sleep on the floor, okay?" he told her, as if he hadn't heard her. He took the bedsheets and blankets that she was carrying in her hands and dropped it onto the tatami mat. He then proceeded to remove his cloak and his armor, putting it aside in another part of the room.

"It's not all your fault, Jellal," Erza said. "I think Kagura was being protective of her brother, and you just happened to be someone that she knew that she could blame."

The blue-haired man turned back around to her, looking at her straight in the eye for a moment before continuing to mind his own business, setting up his bed for the night.

"I've done my share of asshole-y things," he said, finally. "You don't have to try to make me feel better about it."

"You're not a terrible person," she blurted.

Jellal paused for a second. "Just go to sleep, Erza. You need to wake up early tomorrow morning, don't you?"

But the strawberry shortcake was probably the last thing on her mind right now.

Erza frowned to herself, watching Jellal smooth out the sheets over the tatami mat. Jellal didn't honestly think that he was the source of all of Simon's problems, did he? He certainly hadn't been nice to Simon when he was a kid on that day—but was Kagura's grudge reasonable? It seemed like even Simon had forgotten about the whole thing until Kagura brought it back up again.

Jellal had probably become the scapegoat in Kagura's mind, and it wasn't as if Jellal had continually bullied or beat up Simon when he was a kid. Jellal had changed since then. Even if Simon was affected so much by that to the point that his self-confidence was forever damaged, Jellal had apologized and done what he could to fix it for now. He couldn't go back in time and fix everything.

She watched him crawl into his bed, face in his pillow, setting himself to sleep. After staring at his lying body for a moment, she requipped into more comfortable sleeping clothes, turning the lights, and lay down in bed.

She decided to let the matter go and to stop worrying about the man—maybe Jellal would feel better in the morning tomorrow.

She tried for a while to get herself to sleep, but found she had many things on her mind—for one, she was still worried that Jellal was very clearly upset with all that had happened that day; for two, she couldn't believe that she had run into Simon and Kagura today, even if it was a bit of a tense meeting; and for three, she was sleeping in the _same room_ as Jellal.

All these thoughts spiraled in Erza's head and eventually kept her awake for much longer than she would have liked. And the longer she was awake while Jellal was asleep in the same room, the worse it was for her to try to get sleep since it grew more awkward for her to think about how she wasn't asleep yet even though he had no trouble going to bed at all—what did it mean for her to think it was awkward and for him to not?

Erza recalled some of the earlier discussion that had happened that day. Simon and Jellal had been smitten by the same girl when they were young, huh? It almost bemused her to think that at such a young age, all this drama had happened.

She couldn't imagine who they both might have liked—

A realization settled heavily in Erza's stomach, and as soon as it came to her, all the pieces started forming together. From the way that Simon had rested his hand over hers and then took it back, to the way that Jellal couldn't meet her in the eyes after Kagura confronted him…

It was _her_ , wasn't it?

An uncomfortable twist formed in her heart and she became extremely uneasy. She rolled over to the other side of the bed, staring into the light trickling in from the other side of the door.

 _Simon might still be awake_ , she thought.

She hesitated for a second before deciding to get up from bed and talking to him. She needed to talk to _someone_. She opened the door and followed the soft light toward the kitchen table.

To her surprise, it wasn't Simon—but his sister.

When Erza came into the room, the girl became startled. "Erza," she said, looking up from the book that she was reading.

"I thought Simon might have been awake," Erza told her.

Kagura shook her head. "Simon would never stay up this late."

Erza looked at the empty chair across from her. "I can't sleep. Do you mind if I join you here?"

The younger girl didn't say a word, which Erza took as an approval of her taking the seat.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Kagura suddenly said.

The redhead looked up at her, questioning her apology. "About what?"

"I was being a little immature earlier," she confessed. "I didn't mean to make a big fuss out of it. I just…I just wanted to protect my brother."

"That's no reason to apologize," Erza assured her. "I think Simon deserved the apology. Jellal did seem like he was very mean to Simon."

"That didn't call for my behavior the entire night," Kagura replied. "I could have easily found a more civil way to bring up the topic." She sighed. "I guess I just felt so… _angry_ because Simon has been feeling really lonely lately, and he's a good guy, and I know that he can just ask and someone would want to date him. And I remember the one day—the only day that I've seen my brother really upset—and that was the day that Jellal had mocked him…so I couldn't help it when I saw…him."

"It's good you're looking out for your brother like that," Erza agreed.

"I'm sorry, Erza," she repeated. "My brother was good friends with you, and I know that seeing you was the best surprise we've had all month—and I had to ruin it by acting up because Jellal happened to be traveling with you."

A bit of silence settled between the two girls.

"Kagura," Erza started, softly and hesitant. "Do you know who Simon wanted to…give the birthday present to?"

The raven-haired girl shook her head. "He never wanted to talk about it. He only told me what happened."

A longer stretch of silence passed between them before Erza finally decided to say what had been on her mind.

"I think it might have been me," Erza confessed. "I think I was the girl that they both…liked."

Kagura's eyes widened.

"It was _you_?" Kagura asked, in disbelief. She started to slowly stand up, out of her chair. " _You_ were the one that my brother broke his heart over?" She pursed her lips before continuing. "I can't believe you. No wonder my brother was acting so nice to you—and even now, you still dare to show your face here…with _him_."

After a beat, she dismissed herself from the table, walking away, and passing Erza.

"You've grown to be a strong woman, Kagura," Erza said, quietly, without looking back.

Erza's comment stopped Kagura in the middle of her tracks. The younger girl turned around. "What?"

"I remember when you were timid and were scared of fighting the older boys in the foster home that wanted to take your allowance," the redhead continued. "I remember one day when the boys demanded that you give them the new doll that you had saved up your money for, and you were about to give it to them because you didn't think you had the strength to fight yourself. I remember feeling bad for you, and then telling the boys to stop bullying you. And then I fought all three of them and got put in time-out for the rest of the week."

Erza smiled, suppressing a small laugh, and then turned around to face Kagura, who was still standing frozen mid-step behind her.

Kagura didn't say a word, but Erza could tell by the flash in her hazel eyes that Kagura had suddenly remembered who she was.

"You were _that_ girl," Kagura said, softly. "You taught me to always stand up for myself—and I've never backed down ever since." She slowly started to walk back toward the kitchen table, back toward Erza. "Simon said that the girl that he liked back in the foster home was strong and independent, and that's what he liked the most about her." She stood in front of Erza, her expression having changed from seeing Erza with disgust to seeing Erza with another realization. "It was you, all along, wasn't it?"

The Fairy Tail mage didn't say a word.

Kagura blinked and then suddenly reached out to give Erza a hug. "Thank you," she said.

Erza sighed, smiling. "I'm sorry that I was part of the reason why Simon doesn't think fully of himself," Erza said, returning Kagura's embrace. "But I think that you have done a lot to remind him that he is worthy."

Erza felt Kagura nod her head, before the two of them pulled away from their embrace.

"I'm sorry," the younger girl apologized. "I almost acted up again."

"It's normal to be protective of the people you care about, Kagura. I know that if someone hurt the feelings of my Fairy Tail _nakama_ , I would beat them into pulp."

Kagura gave Erza a rare smile. "I joined a guild, too."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mermaid Heel."

The redhead smiled warmly. "And I'm sure that they would get mad at the people that make you upset, too."

Kagura nodded. "You taught me to be strong, Erza. I joined a guild of strong women because I thought that eventually I would be able to meet the person that had taught me to be that way…I heard that you had joined a guild…But I didn't realize that you would be standing right in front of me."

"I'm sorry that I caused your brother pain in the past."

Kagura shook her head. "No—you were one of my brother's best friends. He said so himself…And Jellal…we were all young at some point. I forgive him."

Curiosity suddenly struck Kagura's hazel eyes, and the mood in the air very swiftly changed from serious discussion to a little bit more gossipy. "So…that means that _you_ were the girl that Jellal liked."

Erza was surprised at the turn of the conversation. She laughed nervously, catching herself. "I guess so."

She hadn't completely gotten comfortable with that realization yet.

"Are you traveling…together?" Kagura asked.

The older girl blinked. "Yes, but just for this one mission. We're not _together_ , you know?"

Kagura nodded, and a smile broke across her face. "So Jellal's not too different from Simon, after all, huh? He hasn't said a word to you."

 _Jellal liked me_ , Erza repeated to herself, having heard it implicitly from Kagura.

Even just thinking about the fact made her blush.

Kagura caught the older girl staring off into space. "You like him, too, don't you?"

"Wh-what? No, no, no," Erza corrected Kagura, becoming flustered. "I just thought it was strange, since I was in the middle of the whole thing today and I didn't realize it until now, and I'm pretty sure both of them knew that you were talking about me, even though you didn't know it either, and I just thought it was funny!"

The younger girl gave her a suspicious smile. "I wouldn't take it against you."

Erza smiled back. "Jellal is a close friend," she admitted. "But that's it."

The younger girl crossed her arms. "Whatever you say," she said, with a clear tone that she didn't believe Erza.

Erza's smile broadened. The two of them have seemed to have reached an understanding.

"We can be friends, now, right?" the redhead offered.

She was surprised to see Kagura hesitate with a small frown, eventually shaking her head.

"I decline."

But before Erza could question it, Kagura looked down to the ground, shy.

"I was hoping…that you would become more like…an older sister."

The request took Erza by surprise, but Erza eventually returned a warm smile to the younger girl. "Well…who knew that behind all the tough girl-ness, you were so cute." She stretched her arms around Kagura and brought the girl's face close to her chest.

Kagura immediately turned embarrassed. "I-it—this doesn't mean anything. I-I just have always looked up to you, and just didn't know it was you. A-and—"

"You're so cute. Of course, I'll be your older sister," Erza declared again, squeezing the girl even closer to her despite her newly declared younger sister's protest.

 **after some sisterly bonding**

Erza returned to bed that night with warm feelings in her heart. She had, after all, just gotten a new younger sister, and as embarrassing as it was for her to admit, she had always wanted to have a little sister. Being an only child and not knowing of any other family members in her life, she had always wanted to have some kind of a blood relation to someone else—even if it was just fake.

To think that such a beautiful and hardworking girl would want her as an older sister…how precious!

The Fairy Tail mage slowly opened the door to the guest bedroom, reminding herself that she wasn't the only person in the room. She quickly closed the door and shut herself into the nightly embrace of the moonlight trickling in from the window, which softly shined down on a sleeping and peaceful Jellal.

She made her way to the bed, but as she put her knee on the mattress, she felt a little curiosity stir within her. She wasn't entirely sure what possessed her, but a split second later, she found herself crouching down by the tatami mat where her companion lay.

He was sleeping cutely, like the way she had observed that he did on almost all train rides. He was sleeping on his side, facing the window. Blue floppy hair covered the entire top part of his face, spreading across the pillow. His mouth was closed in a passive smile, and his entire body was curled up into a half-fetal position. The thin blanket had started falling to the ground, partly exposing his shirtless body, which rose up and down to the rhythm of his breathing.

After watching him for a full five breaths in and out, Erza decided that she could spend quite a while just watching the sleeping man. She lay on her side, facing him, making sure that she wasn't touching the tatami mat at all, in case that her movements would awaken him.

She reached her hand over to softly graze the ends of the hair falling over his face, making sure not to move them too roughly so that he would feel them. Eventually she dared herself to lift his bangs up from his face so that she could see his closed eyes.

She did that just that and was surprised to see his eyes were wide open.

Erza snapped back her hand and saw his mouth curl into a full smile. His hand moved up to his face, pushing the hair out of his eyes so that he could see her with both eyes.

"Can't sleep?" he asked her, his voice a little husky from his past couple of hours of sleep.

"No," she replied, and looking at his eyes and hearing his question reminded her of why she was awake in the first place.

"I know it was me," Erza said suddenly.

His eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

"I remember that you gave me a handful of flowers that you collected from a field somewhere on my birthday."

He took a deep sigh in and out before turning around to face the other direction, giving her his back.

She frowned. "Jellal," she said, touching his back. "Look at me."

He was nonresponsive for a few seconds—and for a moment, she thought to give up on talking to him about the whole matter—but then he turned onto his back and turned his face toward her.

"Kagura forgives you," she said.

"That doesn't take away the fact that I didn't treat Simon well."

"It's okay, Jellal. You were young, and I don't think anyone really knew what they were doing when they were kids."

"I'm not giving myself that excuse," he told her.

Erza was dissatisfied with his negative attitude. She skootched herself closer to him, putting the side of her face onto the edge of the pillow and letting herself lay on a small slice of his tatami mat. "Listen," she told him. "Everyone makes mistakes, and these mistakes don't govern their entire life."

"It wasn't just Simon, Erza," Jellal sighed, pulling his face up to stare at the ceiling. "I was just a terrible kid all around back then. Kagura reminded me of a lot of the other things that I did when I was in the foster home."

"But don't you remember inspiring all the kids when you stood up for us?" she asked him. "When you told the house managers that the kids should have more time to educate ourselves? Because if we didn't learn anything about the world, the world wasn't going to accept us and treat us fairly? That the world wasn't ever going to accept us as kids without a home and without a family so we have to stand up for ourselves?"

She smiled. "You've done good things, too, Jellal. And…you were the first one who inspired me to do something for myself, too."

He continued to stare at the ceiling. "I've wronged you, too," he finally said.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

He turned his face back to her. "I ruined that same birthday for you, remember?"

She didn't reply, waiting to hear what he would say.

"Right before you were about to blow out the candles, I grabbed the cake and ran away with it," he recalled. "I remember everyone chasing after me—especially you—and then when I couldn't run any further and I was cornered by some of the older kids and you, I just threw the entire cake in your face."

Erza remained quiet.

"I just wanted attention," he said. "And I did stupid, terrible things to my friends because I wanted to feel special."

After taking a moment to gather her thoughts, Erza opened her mouth. "I mean, I definitely remembered you did that," she started, and when he saw his eyes grow sad, she quickly continued. "But…you didn't ruin everything, and if anything you made my birthday really special that year."

To be honest, she hadn't remembered that this had happened at all. She knew that Jellal was mean to her every now and then, but she had never hated him for all the trouble that he had given her—even when he had fun of her for leaving the foster home the day before she left for Fairy Tail. She always just thought that Jellal was bad at telling her that he considered her a close friend.

"You cried so much that day," he said. "It was your favorite kind of cake—strawberry shortcake—and I ruined it for you. I can't forgive myself for doing that to you."

"That's ridiculous, Jellal," she said. "It was just a birthday."

He turned his eyes back to her. "It was _your_ birthday. I ruined the birthday of the person I cared about the most. I can't believe that I did that to you."

 _He liked you_ , she suddenly reminded herself.

"That was what I remembered the most," he said. "But Kagura reminded me that I had bullied a lot of other people too—like Simon—and I often got away with it too. I didn't even remember all these terrible things that I did—like I wasn't even conscious that I was bullying others or being mean to others. And I just did it all for personal gain, because I wanted other people to think I was cool. I don't know what I was thinking back then—I don't know what possessed me then."

He took a deep breath.

"That's why I decided to help you make your strawberry shortcake," he finally confessed. "But I don't know if this will ever make up for me being so mean to you in the past. And I affected all those other kids that I was mean too as well. I'm the reason why they aren't living to their fullest—I wasn't a good influence to anyone. I don't think I can make it up to anyone."

"Jellal," she began, after listening to his words. "The purpose of your life isn't to make up for the mistakes that you've made in the past and to punish yourself every day for the things that you did. We've all done our share of good and bad things, and we just have to move forward and keeping trying our best to be our best."

She couldn't read his eyes, but she could feel that her words weren't convincing him.

"I forgive you, Jellal," she told him. "And the reason why you're helping me make the most perfect strawberry shortcake isn't because you're paying for what you did to my cake on my birthday in the past. It's because you want to help me make my cake—and you're helping a lot.

"I don't care about that birthday—that was a long time ago, and what's more important to me is that I've gotten to see you again," she continued. "After I left the foster home, I thought I would never see you again."

She felt a blush grow over her checks, and she was extremely glad that the darkness of the night would cover her embarrassment. Where were all these sentimental words coming from?

"I'm really glad that you're with me right now," she concluded.

His eyes seemed to widen a little bit. "….really?"

"Yes," she affirmed, giving him a nod.

He seemed to feel much better about that, and she reached a hand over to him to smooth back some hair that had fallen over his face.

To her surprise, his hand suddenly took the wrist of the hand that she was using to brush his hair back. He drew the back of her hand close to his face and then pressed his lips to the back of her hand, kissing it before hugging her hand against his chest, closing his eyes and cuddling into her hand.

He still liked her, she realized.

And this time, she let the warmth that settled over her cheeks fall into her heart.

* * *

 **I'm curious to know what you think of this trainwreck of a chapter, haha. Hopefully this was entertaining for you to read and I agree that some parts of it are a little ridiculous, lol. Would love to hear your thoughts!**

 **With love and I hope you're spending the last days of 2015 well,**

 **thir13enth**


	7. the eggs

**notes:** Hey, everyone. I think the first thing that I want to do is apologize. This story looked like it was going to be complete as I was in the midst of writing it, but I seem to have dropped off just as I was about to finish. Two general reasons for that: One, I think I've been a little discouraged from writing this story because I reached a writer's block point and I personally didn't like what I was doing with it. Two, I also felt like the story wasn't well liked, so I guess that also didn't help in terms of motivating me to continue writing this. And well...it sounds petty but I felt like I was talking to myself and that's uncomfortable, haha. *sweat drop*

Anyway, I'll be honest, I'm only coming back to this story because I want and need to finish it. I hope that the writing reads with the same color and passion that I once wrote it with. I hope you do enjoy, nevertheless, because I think I was once proud to have thought of the idea. (I've since moved onto other Jerza pieces, haha.)

* * *

 **the eggs**

"Erza…"

When the redhead opened her eyes, she was startled to see his chocolate brown eyes gazing right at her, just a pillow's distance away.

Surprised, she pulled herself up and realized that she had fallen asleep on Jellal's bed. The last thing she remembered was him kissing her hand…

She ignored the deep blush that fell over her face.

"Did you still want to get your eggs for your shortcake?" he asked her.

Titania wasted no time at the reminder of her lifelong mission. She stood up straight, requipping into her casual Heart Kreuz armor. She helped Jellal fold up the bedsheets and blankets, lightly blushing when she felt the lingering warmth from his body on the fabric. She stacked up the bedding materials onto her unused bed and then turned around to watch Jellal—mostly his shirtless back—roll up the tatami mat and toss it into the corner of the room.

He swiftly pulled a top over his torso, the moment that Erza decided that she should peel her eyes away and pull out the recipe book that she kept in her armor. She opened it to the page that Levy had bookmarked for her—the instructions to her most perfect strawberry shortcake. After browsing the ingredient list, Erza realized that after collecting the eggs this morning, all she would need to get was the vanilla and then she could head back to the guild to bake the most perfect strawberry shortcake!

This meant that she could be done with everything by the end of the day!

She tucked her book back into her armor, noticing that Jellal had finished pulling on all his armor. They agreed silently that they were both ready to go and headed out of Simon and Kagura's home, heading straight to the milling room to bid the siblings farewell.

As expected, the siblings were already hard at work, having made many pounds of flour—and it was barely past the crack of dawn. Simon stopped when he noticed them coming into the milling room.

"Heading out now?" the brother asked.

"Yes." And Erza stepped forward to give her friend a firm hug. "Thanks for everything yesterday. I'm so glad that I know where you are now—I'll come to visit!"

When Simon pulled away from her embrace, Erza found Kagura standing right behind her older brother, looking a little bashful before asking for a hug from Erza, which the redhead gladly obliged her adopted younger sister.

"Please come back!" the two siblings called after them, and even Jellal waved back to them with a strong smile before the two of them left their friends' wheat farm.

Erza smiled, happy that she and Jellal were both able to connect to someone else from their past.

 **finding the wild chickens**

Erza had heard that the best eggs came from those chickens that were free roaming and running wild. However, she had absolutely no idea how to track down these chickens, nor did she have any Chicken Armor that would help enhance her search of these chickens.

All she knew that the wild chickens were often found within these plains between Mt. Hakobe, where they had picked up their flour, and Shirotsume, where they were going to grab their vanilla beans from one of the street traders.

The two of them sat in the car, staring out at the plain plains.

After another long moment, Jellal admitted, "I don't know anything about wild chickens, either."

"We just have to find a nest and grab some eggs, right?" Erza asked, unsure herself. "Chickens lay eggs in protected places on the ground—they don't really like to make nests, so we just have to look for safe looking place, right?"

"Yeah. You're most certainly right," the other mage assured, smiling back at her.

She looked back at him, unable to help herself but smile as well, feeling all the more confident in what she was doing. Her heart skipped a beat when realizing that this was the first moment that they were acknowledging each other after his confession from yesterday, and she was relieved to see that the once heavy uncertain look that she got from his eyes was no longer there.

"Let's go get some eggs then," she concluded, promptly getting up. She looked back, biting her lip for a moment, before she settled on taking his hand. "Come on!"

 **after a few hours**

As bright as the sun was, it certainly did not help the mages find their necessary ingredients for the most perfect strawberry shortcake. The sun rose to its peak and was about to circle back to the horizon when the two of them finally decided that maybe it would be better for them to take a short break before coming back to the mission.

"We'll find it before the sun sets," Jellal assured her, and she nodded.

She sat down, stretching her legs out onto the ground and making herself comfortable.

A moment of silence stretched out between them. She looked over in Jellal's direction, noticing that he was in deep thought. She didn't want to disturb him, but at the same time, he looked so unsettled that she had to ask:

"Is everything alright?"

He took a moment to reply, but when he did, he looked at her with solemn eyes. "I'm just thinking about yesterday," he finally said.

Her heart thumped. What _part_ of yesterday was he thinking about?

"I was wondering if everything you said was true," he continued. "If you actually forgive me for everything I've done. You can be honest with me."

She blinked and tried to act like she was taking this lightly, even though his guiltiness actually tugged at her. "Of course, I do," she said, as whimsically as she could. She hugged her knees, feeling herself growing uncomfortable with her inability to make him feel better about himself.

"What…" and he took a deep breath before continuing. "What do you want me to do after this?"

He didn't need to explain for her to fill in the rest of the sentence. _After the shortcake?_

"I…" he suddenly began to answer for himself. "I can—"

"No," she interrupted him.

Whatever it was he was going to say, it was going to be something that she knew _he_ didn't want to do and something that she knew she wouldn't like.

"I…" she started again, but she didn't know what to say.

Erza pondered on this for a moment. She looked off to the grass in front of her, feeling Jellal watching for her answer intently. After another moment, he turned his head away and looked off to the side. She returned her gaze away from him and concentrated on her answer.

 _What to say? How to say it?_

She leaned backwards on her hands, thinking hard. She clawed at the ground behind her. To her surprise, however, she felt a very different texture than she had expected. _What was this?_

 _Straw?_

She looked behind her, grasping onto the few odd strands before she rose it to her eyes to see what she had gathered up. Straw?

Her answer would have to wait.

"Jellal—"

He turned to her, having waited for her answer. But she showed him the yellow straw in her hand.

"I think we might be onto something!"

Excitedly, Erza got back up, following the trail of yellow straw behind her. She couldn't believe that she hadn't noticed this before, but she was equally astounded that she had come across this discovery. She ran up until she finally found—right there—on the ground behind a large bush, a large nest with six large eggs, looking glossy, shiny, a few speckles on their shells.

She clasped her hands together and gasped in awe before she pointed at the nest. "Look!" she exclaimed, motioning to Jellal, whose eyes also widened a bit.

"We found a nest," he agreed.

Erza nodded proudly, crossing her arms before she looked back down at her prize. The long search was over.

A cloud floated by in the sky, giving the two mages some shade and a much needed breeze. The two mages closed their eyes and took a deep breath, enjoying the small period of tranquility with the finally discovered eggs for Erza's most perfect strawberry shortcake, under the momentary shade from the hot sun, and with each other.

Erza sat back onto the ground, observing the large and perfect eggs in front of her. She smiled, turning her grin to her companion, who also sat down beside her.

The two of them looked up—and then realized that the shade they had been sitting in was actually not at all a cloud in the sky.

It was a monster-sized chicken.

Erza wasn't the type to be afraid, often showing a calm and passive face to anything that snuck up from behind her. However, the fact that she nothing on chickens and had never in her life seen a chicken that was almost as large as her guild house elicited some form of kya from her.

"BAWK!"

"Kya!" She jolted up onto both her feet, quickly and gracefully, albeit a tiny margin shaky as she unsheathed a sword.

"Erza!" Jellal called out. "Go grab the eggs—I'll distract the chicken!"

But the S-Class Mage was not used to backing down from a fight. She requipped into her Heaven's Wheel Armor within the next second and was already leaping towards to ward off the hard-beaked and frantic chicken.

Seeing that she had reacted before he had, the blue-haired mage quickly gathered as many eggs as he could from the nest before he running off—with help of a quick Meteor spell—to drop the ingredients a bit further in the distance from where Erza was fighting off the angry wild beast.

She raised her sword and pointed it at the chicken, threatening it.

"Dare you thwart my efforts from creating the most perfect strawberry shortcake?" she asked of the fowl.

"BAWK!"

Erza was undeterred, tucking a smile away. "Well then," she replied. "You leave me with no choice."

There was absolutely nothing getting in her way, after all.

The hen screeched with determined audacity, its wings unfurling into the air, beady eyes staring straight at her. The animal was many times larger than her and it probably thought her a worm, but oh she'd show this creature that it was no match for her likes of Titania!

She rose her sword, ready, but then was surprised to feel a hand around her sword, stopping her from advancing further into battle. She turned around and was surprised to see Jellal, holding her back.

"Come on, Erza," he suggested. "Let's get out of here really quickly!"

She blinked, offended. "I will not give up this fight!" she retorted, pulling back her hand from him.

"I'm not telling you to give up the fight," he chuckled. "I'm just saying that we don't have to."

"No! The chicken must be defeated!" she demanded.

He sighed. "This is one of the things I love and hate most about you."

His remark caught her attention—one of the things he _loves_?

"Besides, you'd rather spend that time baking your cake, wouldn't you?" he added.

And when he took her hand in his, she found she couldn't let go.

* * *

 **notes:** Currently listening to Bryce Fox - Burn Fast (Louis Vivet Remix) on repeat, if you're as much of a music nerd as I am. :3

 **thir13enth**


	8. the vanilla

**notes** : somehow i didn't realize that i had actually finished writing this chapter ages ago. well then, here is the update! (as always – late, with profuse apologies.) in any case, i am almost done with this story! i absolutely cannot wait to put an end to everything, yes yes.

(also i just noticed that today marks the anniversary of this story lol. it has officially been one year since i first posted this!)

* * *

 **the vanilla**

 _This is one of the things I love and hate about you._

What was _that_ supposed to mean?

Erza found herself chewing her bottom lip at this thought, but then Jellal suddenly interrupted her in the middle of her musings.

"Hey," he greeted her, with a disarming smile, looking over at her from the other side of the seat. "You okay there?"

She laughed, affirming that everything was fine and that she was most definitely not thinking about what he had said to her earlier. Not at all.

She refocused channeling her magic through the cables of the vehicle, staring ahead at the road.

They're on their way to Shirotsume to get vanilla now, taking turns running the magical car from the field of the giant chicken to the small trader town along the borders of Fiore, where Erza had long ago researched had the best quality vanilla.

And of course, for her most perfect strawberry shortcake, there was no other choice but to trek all the way over there.

"Oh, good," he replied. "I was afraid that the chicken might have actually traumatized you."

She rolled her eyes, but then dared to look back in his direction, only to find that he was looking straight back at her.

She could have blushed and glanced away, but instead, she held his eyes and they traded smiles. She could have sworn he scooted in a little closer to her, but she tried to ignore the closing distance between their bodies for the remainder of the long road trip.

There was an ease that settled in her heart, rumbling lower than the murmur of her heartbeat, the vibration of the car's tires against the gravel road. There was no one ahead of them and no one behind them for miles and miles to be seen, but there was a comfort in knowing that she wasn't alone on this journey for the most perfect strawberry shortcake, and that he was there with her.

break

To Erza's surprise, finding the merchant with the most perfect vanilla was a lot more difficult than anticipated. Shirotsume—despite its many foreign visitors that came in and out of the town seeking craft-quality ingredients—was not the easiest to navigate, and she soon found Jellal and her lost among all the hussle and bussle of the marketplace.

Erza, of course, was too stubborn to come close to admitting that she was frustrated after what seemed like hours of walking around in circles, but Jellal was quick to notice her deteriorating spirit.

"We should go ask someone that might know where to find the vanilla vendor," he suggested, quickly ducking his head under the tent cover of the nearest merchant before she could protest.

Jellal returned to her after a few minutes, looking irritated.

"What happened?"

"She says she's never heard of this famous vanilla merchant," he explained, storming past Erza to the next tent.

Jellal later popped out of the tent—looking increasingly furious.

Erza stifled a laugh. "That vendor didn't know about any vanilla either, I presume?"

With his lack of answer and his narrowed eyes, she could tell the answer, and she bit her lip to keep from smiling too much at his cute frustration.

It wasn't long before the two of them realized that as difficult as it was to actually find the vanilla vendor, it was difficult even just to find someone that _knew_ who they were talking about.

Finally after asking seven people, the eighth vendor—a younger woman selling medicinal herbs—was able to lead them in the right direction—

"Oh," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing. "The old man four tents down must be who you're looking for."

" _Thank_ you," Jellal said, with a great sigh of relief. "I was beginning to think—"

"But he's fickle and might not sell you the vanilla," the herb vendor added.

Erza could hear Jellal hold his breath.

"There's another vanilla merchant down this aisle though," the seller explained. "He doesn't have the most perfect vanilla that you're looking for, but—"

"That will be alright," Erza interrupted. "I'm only here for the best."

And before Jellal could stop her, the scarlet-haired warrior was on her way, ducking her head under the tent four spots down.

"Good afternoon, sir. I was told that you might have what I need," she greeted.

The man just blinked at her.

"Vanilla? I was told that you have the best."

"No," the elder denied.

Erza blinked twice. "But—" she said, her mouth opening and closing.

"No," the vendor repeated. The old man continued to stare at her, and after a long minute, Jellal tapped Erza on the back.

"Come on, let's go," Jellal said. "Let's go to the other vendor."

But Erza held her ground. "No. I was told that he has the best and I will not give up that easily for my most perfect strawberry shortcake." And so she planted her feet into the ground, crossed her arms, and glared hard back at the man.

The vendor gave Erza a hard stare-one that she didn't back away from, and after about a minute of simply staring at each other, the vendor seemed to assess her level as a person and then demanded, "You seem like a strong spirit and one worthy of the best vanilla. I demand 800 gold coins."

Erza's eyes widened at the price demanded. That was more than the amount of money she would expect to receive after 5 intermediate-leveled missions back at the guild!

"For how much would that price be for?" Jellal asked quickly, and before he could finish his sentence, the man produced something from behind the counter—a vial no taller than his pinky and just as wide.

Jellal was appalled. "What? That is a ridiculous amount of money for what you're giving us!"

"No haggling!" the vendor spat. "You wanted the _best_ vanilla. What do you expect to pay for the best?"

"It's okay, Jellal," Erza said, deciding that fighting down to the coins was not worth it with the vanilla trader. She popped upon her purse and lifted a thousand-coin bill into the air. "Will this be enough then?" she asked the seller.

The elderly man squinted at the shiny crisp bill in Erza's hand, inspecting it for almost as much as he was inspecting Erza's character, and then outstretched his hand to receive the money. "Deal," he said, holding up the small dark brown vial in his other hand.

"Thank you," Erza said. "I'll assure you that your product is put to good use." She triumphantly took the vial—holding the vanilla to the air as if it were a trophy—and stepped back out of the tent, her mission to find the most perfect vanilla complete.

Jellal followed behind, still displeasured at the atrociously overpriced product. He reached over to take the vanilla in his hand, looking down at it with disdain.

"Such a small quantity of vanilla," he said, scrunching his nose, still clearly distrustful of the purchase that Erza had made.

He popped open the tiny bottle and brought it close to his nose quickly, and sniffed, but then jerked back when the strong aroma of vanilla hit the back of his nose and went straight to jolt him in the senses.

"O-Oh wow, that's strong," he admitted, passing the bottle to her and covering his nose.

She grinned. "I knew it. I told you this would be the best," she reminded him, and then grabbed the bottle from him, before bringing it up to her own nose to smell the vanilla. And even though she very well knew and expected the strong aroma to hit her, she still brought it too close to her face, so much that she bumped the vial of vanilla against her skin and immediately jerked it back upon feeling the smell whack her senses.

She couldn't help but gasp, and Jellal most definitely saw the mistake that she made, teasing her with a poke to her stomach.

"Told you," he replied and she frowned jokingly at him.

"So the vanilla was worth it then," she concluded, pocketing the vial. "This will most definitely be the best for my most perfect strawberry shortcake."

"Yes, for our most perfect strawberry shortcake," he repeated.

She blinked a few times when hearing him use the word 'ours' and then felt bad that she had said 'my' instead of sharing the creation with him when he had been with her practically every step of the ingredient way, and she was about to open her mouth and correct herself, but then she noticed that he was staring at her lips with a small smile on his mouth.

Her heart skipped a few beats, wondering exactly why he was looking at her in that way, but then he surprised her again when he raised his hand and pointed his finger at her nose.

"You got some on your nose," he told her.

"Oh," she said, and then stared down cross eyed to where he was pointing, where she did indeed see a small dab of black. She lifted her hand to wipe it off, but his own hand reached forward before she could do so and with a gentle rub, he wiped off the smudge of vanilla from her nose. He turned his finger around to look at the black grainy dab at the edge of his finger.

"Hm, maybe I'll give it a taste test, too," he murmured, and then suddenly lifted his finger to his mouth to taste the vanilla.

Just a second, and his lips curled into disgust. "Bitter," he choked.

She laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. "Of course, it is!" she laughed. "You can't just eat vanilla paste straight up!"

He had such a look of repulsion and shock from this discovery that she couldn't help but laugh harder at his misery. He looked so adorable, so cute, and she couldn't resist the bubbling of joy that welled within her. She reached up for both sides of his face and cradled his jaw, bringing him down to her eye level to cherish him.

"You're so funny," she told him.

And that's when she realized just how close she had brought his face to hers and she panicked for a moment when she saw that his lips were inches from him and she felt her heart beat hard and loud in her ears and the heat rise up to blush her cheeks, and-

A smile graced his lips and he rose back up, sliding his face out of her grasp. He stood up to his full height, chuckling, a deep rumble in his chest, and before she could react, he swooped back down and closed the distance between them, embracing her tightly and pressing a warm and firm kiss to her forehead.

Her eyes widened, but she felt her arms return the hug to him, wrapping around his waist and bringing him closer to her.

There were crowds and crowds of people around them, but for some reason there was just a small bubble there and everything felt right. Strangers all around them and no one knew who they were or what their history was, they would just see the two of them standing together and smiling in each other's companies and assume that the two of them were together.

She thought of this and then soon realized that she didn't mind at all if they confused the two of them for lovers at all.

* * *

 **thir13enth**


End file.
